Michael Ruhlman

Charcuterie —a culinary specialty that originally referred to the creation of pork products such as salami, sausages, and prosciutto—is true food craftsmanship, the art of turning preserved food into items of beauty and taste. Today the term encompasses a vast range of preparations, most of which involve salting, cooking, smoking, and drying. In addition to providing classic recipes for sausages, terrines, and pâtés, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn expand the definition to include anything preserved or prepared ahead such as Mediterranean olive and vegetable rillettes, duck confit, and pickles and sauerkraut. Ruhlman, coauthor of The French Laundry Cookbook , and Polcyn, an expert charcuterie instructor at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan, present 125 recipes that are both intriguing to professionals and accessible to home cooks, including salted, airdried ham; Maryland crab, scallop, and saffron terrine; Da Bomb breakfast sausage; mortadella and soppressata; and even spicy smoked almonds. 50 line drawings

An indispensable new cookbook from James Beard Award-winning food writer Michael Ruhlman From Scratch looks at 10 favorite meals, including roast chicken, the perfect omelet, and paella—and then, through 175 recipes, explores myriad alternate pathways that the kitchen invites. A delicious lasagna can be ready in about an hour, or you could turn it into a project: try making and adding some homemade sausage. Explore the limits of from-scratch cooking: make your own pasta, grow your own tomatoes, and make your own homemade mozzarella and ricotta. Ruhlman tells you how.  There are easy and more complex versions for most dishes, vegetarian options, side dishes, sub-dishes, and strategies for leftovers. Ruhlman reflects on the ways that cooking from scratch brings people together, how it can calm the nerves and focus the mind, and how it nourishes us, body and soul. 

Cookbook author and food writer Ruhlman explores the evolution of the American grocery store and how it has affected what we eat. The author uses two of his Midwestern hometown grocery chains, Heinen's and Fazio's, and his memories of his father's love of food and grocery shopping as the foundation for this engaging narrative. While he notes that many other writers have covered the history of the grocery store, the broken industrial food production system, and the nutritional benefits of various foods, Ruhlman delivers -a reported reflection on the grocery store in America,

From James Beard award-winning author Michael Ruhlman, a coming-of-age story about finding a new life and love in the kitchen…and trying not to get burned along the way. When high school football star Theo Claverback breaks his leg just weeks after a devastating break-up, he’s forced to call an audible on his summer plans and put his college ones on hold. He soon finds himself in the most unlikely of places for a jock on the kitchen of an upscale French restaurant, where he’ll work as a line cook while his heart and leg heal. But it’s in the kitchen where Theo finds new purpose and a new romance. As he becomes a trusted employee to Chef and is welcomed into his inner circle, Theo begins to discover the true costs of running a restaurant—and what happens when you get into hot water with the wrong people. Set in Cleveland, Ohio in 1980, If You Can't Take the Heat is a gritty look inside the belly of an upscale kitchen where love and danger boil behind closed doors.

“A propulsively well-written trio of novellas linked by a sense of loss and an inquiry into the impossible past.” —Kate ChristensenIn his three novellas, “In Short Measures,” “Strong Conspirators,” and “Sally Forth,” Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love—and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades.Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity—what are one’s obligations toward one’s spouse, one’s family, and one’s heart? In the first novella, “In Short Measures,” these questions are bound up in a writer’s work and a long-ago love. In the second, “Strong Conspirators,” an unforeseen, cataclysmic event calls for responses from a husband and wife that have never been rehearsed because they have never been required nor even imagined. In “Sally Forth,” a pair of old friends is forced to explore lost youth and lost love relative to maturity, marriage, and the passage of time.Profoundly thought-provoking and satisfying, these novellas are beautifully written with plot twists from beginning to end that will captivate the reader.

Michael Ruhlman’s groundbreaking New York Times bestseller takes us to the very “truth” of cooking: it is not about recipes but rather about basic ratios and fundamental techniques that makes all food come together, simply. When you know a culinary ratio, it’s not like knowing a single recipe, it’s instantly knowing a thousand. Why spend time sorting through the millions of cookie recipes available in books, magazines, and on the Internet? Isn’t it easier just to remember 1-2-3? That’s the ratio of ingredients that always make a basic, delicious cookie dough: 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour. From there, add anything you want—chocolate, lemon and orange zest, nuts, poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, almond extract, or peanut butter, to name a few favorite additions. Replace white sugar with brown for a darker, chewier cookie. Add baking powder and/or eggs for a lighter, airier texture. Ratios are the starting point from which a thousand variations begin. Ratios are the simple proportions of one ingredient to another. Biscuit dough is 3:1:2—or 3 parts flour, 1 part fat, and 2 parts liquid. This ratio is the beginning of many variations, and because the biscuit takes sweet and savory flavors with equal grace, you can top it with whipped cream and strawberries or sausage gravy. Vinaigrette is 3:1, or 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meats and fish to steamed vegetables or lettuces intense flavor. Cooking with ratios will unchain you from recipes and set you free. With thirty-three ratios and suggestions for enticing variations, Ratio is the truth of cooking: basic preparations that teach us how the fundamental ingredients of the kitchen—water, flour, butter and oils, milk and cream, and eggs—work. Change the ratio and bread dough becomes pasta dough, cakes become muffins become popovers become crepes. As the culinary world fills up with overly complicated recipes and never-ending ingredient lists, Michael Ruhlman blasts through the surplus of information and delivers this innovative, straightforward book that cuts to the core of cooking. Ratio provides one of the greatest kitchen lessons there is—and it makes the cooking easier and more satisfying than ever.

Now in paperback, the eye-opening book that was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Foundation award in the Writing on Food category. In the winter of 1996, Michael Ruhlman donned hounds-tooth-check pants and a chef's jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid and energetic record of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us to the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed. Ruhlman learns fundamental skills and information about the behavior of food that make cooking anything possible. Ultimately, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.

"Well reported and heartfelt, Ruhlman communicates the passion that draws the acolyte to this precise and frantic profession."—The New York Times Book ReviewJust over a decade ago, journalist Michael Ruhlman donned a chef's jacket and houndstooth-check pants to join the students at the Culinary Institute of America, the country's oldest and most influential cooking school. But The Making of a Chef is not just about holding a knife or slicing an onion; it's also about the nature and spirit of being a professional cook and the people who enter the profession. As Ruhlman—now an expert on the fundamentals of cooking—recounts his growing mastery of the skills of his adopted profession, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great food. Incisively reported, with an insider's passion and attention to detail, The Making of a Chef remains the most vivid and compelling memoir of a professional culinary education on record.

The James Beard Award-finalist author of The Soul of a Chef traces the allure of celebrity chefs in America, touring some of the nation's most prestigious and innovative restaurants to explore the latest trends, in an account that profiles such locales as The French Laundry, Le Bernardin, and Las Vegas's most recent additions to the Strip. 35,000 first printing.

In his second in-depth foray into the world of professional cooking, Michael Ruhlman journeys into the heart of the profession. Observing the rigorous Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America, the most influential cooking school in the country, Ruhlman enters the lives and kitchens of rising star Michael Symon and renowned Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. This fascinating book will satisfy any reader's hunger for knowledge about cooking and food, the secrets of successful chefs, at what point cooking becomes an art form, and more. Like Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, this is an instant classic in food writing-one of the fastest growing and most popular subjects today.

Described by one surgeon as “soul-crushing, diamond-making stress,” surgery on congenital heart defects is arguably the most difficult of all surgical specialties. Drawing back the hospital curtain for a unique and captivating look at the extraordinary skill and dangerous politics of critical surgery in a pediatric heart center, Michael Ruhlman focuses on the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, where a team of medical specialists led by idiosyncratic virtuoso Dr. Roger Mee work on the edge of disaster on a daily basis. Walk on Water offers a rare and dramatic glimpse into a world where the health of innocent children and the hopes of white-knuckled families rest in the hands of all-too-human doctors.