Michael Ruhlman's Blog, page 12

The Greyhound

The grapefruit, as I’ve mentioned before, was my introduction to the notion of seasonal. It was 1989, I was not yet 26, and I’d moved into a little bungalow on the sweet island of Palm Beach to work on my novel. Deep into January and through February the trees in back of my hutch hung heavy with grapefruit. The best grapefruit I’d ever had. I don’t know what I was thinking before I actually saw grapefruit on trees, Cleveland boy, that I was. I suppose only that citrus grew in warm weather places pretty much year round, since I can buy them year-round. Well, no. They have a time of year when they naturally appear and this is when you should eat them (which is now). You should also know that if you buy grapefruit Read On »

A Near Perfect Pizza

I’ve been exploring Neapolitan pizzas in NYC, but I haven’t had a better one than I did yesterday at Citizen Pie, a new addition to the Cleveland food scene, in a once gritty neighborhood directly across from Beachland Ballroom, one of the most cutting-edge/eclectic music venues in the state. Chef Vytauras Sasnauskas, Chef V, a native of Lithuania who arrived here in … No, stop … That was how I intended to begin this post, until now, having returned home from my second consecutive meal there. You see, on this night (last night) I’d brought my 16 y.o. son, James, and his friend there on the pretext that they would eat the best pizza they’d ever had. These boys like their pizza so much that they once actually bought a pizza at Brothers pizza on Coventry in Cleveland Heights, Read On »

Key Lime Tart

Down in Key West on my annual boondoggle to cook for my cousins Rob and Ab and their merry band of sailors as they narrowly hang onto second place in their J-111 class, and their son, Ryan, skippers the 88, with his sister cousin Maegan aboard. And so, in honor of place, I’m posting this recipe from my book Egg: An Exploration of the World’s Most Versatile Ingredient: a key lime tart. It is indeed one of the finer desserts I know, custard made with yolks, topped with sweetened, whipped egg whites that are lightly browned. It’s been a week of fun food, fish tacos (using beautiful yellow tail snapper), a lobster night which is always something of a celebratory meal (with leftover strip steaks), last night an easy protein for me, D’Artagnan’s most excellent duck Read On »

On “Healthy” Food

  Yesterday the Washington Post published my article “No Food is Healthy, Not Even Kale.”   Don’t forget to join me online for this Wednesday’s Free Range chat at noon EST at live.washingtonpost.com.     If you liked this post, then you will enjoy these links: My past posts on Roasted Chicken Provençal, New Cooking App: Feast, and Happy New Year. Other recent rants: Cook Your Own Food: Eat What You Want, Is the Government Right This Time?, Food Fascism. The ever-popular post on America: Too Stupid to Cook . Books you should check out: The Third Plate, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Real Food: What to Eat and Why. © 2016 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2016 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.

Roasted Chicken Provençal

Sunday night my dear friends JD and Catherine Sullivan invited me for dinner. JD is a good cook (see the sausage making video we did together; video also feature my partner in tools, Mac Dalton, an appearance by my young son, James, who now, lean and tall, looks me straight in the eye, and JD at the end; it’s a good primer on making sausage). But when I arrived to find that JD’s chicken Provençal was simply baked chicken with herbs I was prepared to be underwhelmed. JD explained that it was a recipe from the estimable Sam Sifton who runs the excellent NYTimes cooking site. Chicken is seasoned, floured, put in a baking dish and roasted for about an hour. It turned out to be a terrific preparation, thanks to the aggressive herbage, and also, importantly, Read On »

Exciting New Cooking App:Feast!

  I’m working with my friend Susie Heller (French Laundry/Bouchon books, among so many others) who’s commandeering the launch of a sleek new cooking app called Feast. It launches Thursday. It’s the brain child of tech health entrepreneur Jakob Jønck a co-founder of Endomondo, a running and fitness app with now more than 25 million users. He also was Head of International Operations at MyFitnessPal, a nutrition app with now more than 100 million users. He and Susie are bringing their love of food and cooking to this new app by marshalling dozens of chefs and food writers who also want to share the love—chefs as diverse and talented as David Kinch, Mourad Lahlou, Michel Richard and Jacques Pepin. The site, which is drop-dead gorgeous, combines these chefs’ recipes (more than 500, all scalable at a touch), technique Read On »

Happy New Year!

I read this excellent NYTimes article on field peas by Kim Severson yesterday and already started hungering for Hoppin’ John, a traditional dish for New Year’s Day. The article is a good reminder too that all peas are not alike so, while the dried peas in your supermarket are perfectly fine, there are other sources for different varieties of field peas for those looking to explore different flavors. The below is my go-to recipe for Hoppin’ John. It will work with just about any dried bean, but I do love the earthy flavor of the black-eyed peas. Wishing all a festive New Year’s Eve, and a healthy, prosperous 2016 filled with good food and lots of home cooking! Hoppin’ John 1 pound black-eyed peas, rinsed 2 large Spanish onions, 1 peeled and halved through the root, 1 Read On »

Peace On Earth, Good Will Toward All

A friend said something important to me this morning: “There’s always a big component of sadness in Christmas. If there isn’t, then you haven’t had a lucky life.” I hadn’t recognized this explicitly until that moment, but I think I’d known this since I was a boy. I still remember one particular Christmas Eve, I must have been six or seven. My parents were upstairs dressing for a series of parties we attended in those days, especially the open house at Peter and Connie Zacher’s. Peter, life-long friend, was a great gourmand and the house was filled with food and cooking and laughter, kids and adults of all ages. But in the quiet, as my parents dressed, I wandered the living room of our small colonial on Norwood Road, in Shaker Heights, OH. The room Read On »

This Season’s Holiday Cookies

By Emilia Juocys The Christmas baking season is upon us again and I could not be happier for the cookies that will be coming out of my oven. The usual suspects of chocolate chip, ginger pig, chocolate orange crinkles, cat’s tongues, and dream bars are in the works. Baked treats for my family and friends. The funny thing was that I was so excited for Christmas cookies because earlier this year the Chicago chef and cookie goddess Mindy Segal came out with her cookie book, Cookie Love. I jumped for joy because the book has the most-delicious rugelach recipe ever! So if you are looking for a dazzling cookie book to give to your baker this holiday, sprint to get this one. Every year I mention why I enjoy sharing these tasty morsels and how that brings smiles to Read On »

Chocolate Financiers

  My friend Stephanie Stiavetti (@sstiavetti) writes The Culinary Life blog. Her first book is Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese.   By Stephanie Stiavetti The holidays are a great time to pull out all the stops in your baking projects, producing incredibly impressive desserts of all types. My past Christmas baking projects have included four dozen handmade brioche cinnamon rolls, an entremet cake with two kinds of cake sandwiched between four different kinds of mousse, and a six-layer pavlova that looked like a decorated Christmas tree at the North Pole. I loved creating these desserts, because they’re a challenge and showcase the pastry skills I’ve built up over the years. But when December rolled around this year, the idea of creating an enormous baking project made me want to punch myself in the face. The holiday season Read On »