Michael Ruhlman's Blog, page 58

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Old Fashioned

Phew! I’m exhausted from all the amazing and powerful energy generated by the food fascism post! Oy! Time for a cocktail!  (Figuatively, I’ve got long hours to go before I earn mine.) Today’s, Friday cocktail hour is one the oldest and simplest on record. In this era of high-end mixology, complex recipes involving expensive aperitifs and liqueurs, well [...]

Food Fascism

  I got an email last week that made my blood boil. Yes seemingly to boil.  Not simmer. A blanching-green-veg boil, a pressure cooker boil. The kind of boil my blood gets when I’m at a restaurant and I hear a woman, grilling the server suspiciously, saying, “I’m allergic to lactose” and then later says, [...]

Homemade Mayonnaise

  I have so much crap on my desk! Being gone for three weeks it piles up. Books I have to at least familiarize myself with, dried soy beans and a tofu press, the manuscript I’ve got to fix, knives and rolling pins and some weird Fagor three-way cooker to figure out, emails to respond [...]

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Berkshire Martinez

Last week’s post on the perfect martini evoked a heated, then spirited, back and forth on twitter, sparked by bartender Gerry Jobe. It ultimately resulted in his suggesting I give a martinez a go. I had a look at a tweeted link and then at my new favorite drink book, Bitters, by Brad Thomas Parsons; [...]

Salumi

Still slammed after weeks away. Part of todays work is going over 2nd pass proofs of Salumi, now scheduled for August 27th publication. First pass illustrations all out of place. Also need to check all salt concentrations. Very important! The above was taken sampling American and smuggled Italian salumi after a trip there. —MR Originally [...]

Cultured Butter

  Back at my desk after three weeks on the road (daughter college trip/week in West Palm to visit Mom with Donna and the kids/NYC biz). NYC biz fun!!! Stayed with dear friend Annie LaG, with whom I'm working on a TV project (don't hold your breath), following fab lunch at the always excellent Bar [...]

The Perfect Martini

OK, it's really gotten bad. I'd been ready to give up the fight. But I just can't let this one go. I went up to the bar, I'm not even going say where, and asked for a martini. The bartender, I shit you not, said, "Any preference of vodka?" I left. I just left. Walked [...]

Mainlining

A couple weeks ago Tuesday, I was lucky enough to score an early rez at the restaurant Animal, the much-hyped LA restaurant run by chefs Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook (Vinny's the bushy one, photo courtesy of Animal). A few weeks earlier, in town for a gig at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (bet you [...]

Twenty: It's Back!

FINALLY!!! Ruhlman's Twenty is back in full stock. The first 25,000 sold out within a few months of publication, so fast that Chronicle Books couldn't push the reprint button fast enough. This delay, followed by a printing error, has kept the book unavailable for four months now! Killing me! But now it's back in full [...]

Buying Local Lamb

A while ago I wrote about Aaron Miller (above, photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman) and his grassfed beef, which I've found to be astonishingly succulent for 100% grassfed (it's all in how you treat the grass, he says; you are what you eat, even if you're a cow). We cooked his turkey at Thanksgiving.  He [...]