Michael Ruhlman's Blog, page 46

Roasted Chicken

Roast chicken is a symbol, an emblem of easy exquisite home cooking, of cooking together. And really satisfying, nourishing food. The world is better on days when we roast a chicken for our family, friends (and lovers, of course—the best roast chicken of all). Which is why I’m posting another shot of one of our [...]

Zucchini Soup

Last summer when Donna and I traveled to Italy, our first meal happened to be at a lovely hotel and home of a great wine maker and his wife, who prepared us a feast that began with zucchini soup. It was zucchini season and so they featured it in three courses without apology, just an [...]

Friday Cocktail Hour: Pink Lady(from a cool new digital book)

I first read about a new self-published iBook, 25 Classic Cocktails, published to iTunes, when Tampa journalist Jeff Houck wrote about entrepreneurial food people turning to digital devices. Donna and I recently published The Book of Schmaltz to the iTunes app store, a short cookbook on making and cooking with rendered chicken fat, an underappreciated cooking [...]

Home Cooks’ Biggest Disadvantage

  Dull knives. It’s the single biggest problem in home kitchens. The. Single. Biggest. Problem. It’s the main reason cooking seems more difficult than it should be. And I’ll say this again, too. Guys and girls, best Valentine’s Day gift you can give your lover/cook, get his/her knives professionally sharpened or a good sharpener. Again: Nothing [...]

Le Creuset: Grill Pan (with Coriander Pepper Crusted Tuna)

I first saw a grill pan used in 1996 at the Monkey Bar when John Schenk was its chef and I was trailing Adam Shepard while reporting The Making of a Chef. I was surprised and thought it was kind of cheating, implying to the diner with those grill marks that some smoky goodness was sure [...]

Literary Interlude: All GoneA Review. With Potato Kugel.

I’m an audible memoir junkie. Love to listen to them read by the author. Some are great readers (Mary Karr), some woeful (James Atlas), some as depressing as their subject (Andre Dubus III), some every bit as hilarious as you hoped they would be (Ellen Degeneres, Tina Fey). I recommend every one of these memoirs. [...]

Christmas Dinnerand the Magic of Yorkshire Pudding

No one is happier than I finally to have some routine again, tree taken down, kids in school, and a plunge back into work with all kinds of exciting projects on the horizon. But I can’t stop thinking about these Yorkshire puddings. I’m always surprised by popovers, how simple they are, and how dramatic they [...]

Top 10 Posts 2012

Time to reflect on the year that has passed, a good one with much productivity here in the Ruhlman household! As our hobbled economy slouches toward recovery (and a fractious House of Reps hides behind a corner, stick in hand, waiting to trip it up), we remain staunchly optimistic! And I would like to publicly [...]

Thoughts on the Eve of a New Year

News of tragedies is been heaped upon us, the fortuneate, and actual tragedies have made the end of 2012 catastrophic for so many families. Our hearts go out to them, most of all to the parents who lost children in Newtown, CT, and all parents who have lost children of any age. (If any of [...]

Made in the USA

ABC has a regular feature called “Made in America,” which praises small businesses that make goods here. Advertisers have found that “Made in the USA” is a powerful marketing device. I myself have a feel-good response to anything made in this country. But what does it really mean? How critical is it? Steve Jobs said [...]