Michael Ruhlman's Blog, page 53

Salumi—Signed Copies Giveaway!

To celebrate this week’s publication of Salumi, my and Brian Polycn’s deeper quest into the craft of dry-curing meat, I’m giving away three copies signed by both me and Brian to three commenters on this post. For those who aren’t clear on the definition (and Italians don’t make things easy), salumi refers to Italian cured [...]

BLT from Scratch

  Last week, while I stood by my Big Green Egg, smoking a big fat pork belly (for bacon) and two fat beef briskets (for pastrami), I couldn’t help but think how am I going to eat this delicious food? It was a warm, sunny day and I could actually smell the tomato vines behind [...]

Cooking with Tofu (Are You Serious?!)

I hate tofu. That’s been my knee-jerk response pretty much since tasting it the first time and every time I had it after. It wasn’t so much that it had no flavor—nothing really not to like about that; what’s not to like about nothing?—it was rather the lack of flavor combined with its curdy texture. [...]

Salumi, It’s Here!

  Amazon is always ahead, damn them! They’d been advertising an August 27 release date for my new book, Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing, but suddenly I’m getting twitpics from people who have ordered and already received their copy! The video isn’t ready, but you folks clearly are, so here it is, Brian Polcyn’s [...]

Basic Meals—Just Add Water

Last week I wrote about our first meal in Italy with the Motturas—the fineness of the meal and the pleasures of sitting down to many courses. But many courses didn’t mean many elaborate courses but rather food of the simplest order. The first course was composed of nothing more than day-old bread and a few [...]

Italy Arrival

Donna and I had begun 12 days of a work-vacation (what other kind of vacation would we do without kids?) by flying to Rome, then heading immediately north toward the Tuscan town of Barga, where my cousin Missy had planned her marriage (she had a work-marriage, teaching yoga there before the nuptials). We planned to [...]

Italian Interlude—Portofino

  Between crazy-busy travel and much work all July, and then a work-travel assignment in France, Donna and I took a two-day breather to celebrate our back-to-back birthdays. I’m not always very smart when it comes to marital issues, but I did know one thing: I did not want to be sitting around in Cleveland [...]

Crab Boil

How To Prepare a Simple Crab Boil Originally posted on August 11, 2011 By far the best meal of the summer was our crab boil during our week in Ocracoke. And like many “best” meals, it was unplanned, a surprise, a gift we were smart enough to take advantage of. Donna has pals from her [...]

Dinner with Pardus

  My Dinner with Pardus Originally posted July 31, 2008 Do you have any veal hearts?” Pardus asked. The vendor, with happiness and surprise, said, “I do!” He pulled it out of the cooler and said, “How about five bucks?” “Sold!” What happens when a chef visits for the weekend? My old instructor and now [...]

Summer Is for Hamburgers

In the same way you would never think to buy grocery store ground pork to make salami, why should you settle for grocery store ground beef—at least at times when you want to have a really great burger? I understand convenience, but I want to encourage people to grind their own meat. Read more below, [...]