Cooking On the Road (Tools I Traveled With)

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 27, 2012

An array of tools I didn't want to be without when I arrived in an unfamiliar kitchen.

If you're on the road and will be cooking in unfamiliar kitchens, what are the essentials you cannot afford to be without? Thomas Keller once told me he always brought three things, kosher salt, string, and his pepper mill.  Everything else, a restaurant kitchen was likely to have. But what about when you're traveling to a rental house, as I did last week. A rental house you count on providing you with one crappy non-stick pan, a small plastic cutting board, a cheap pot just big enough to cook a box of spaghetti in, and an array of dull and serrated knives. Donna photographed the tools I brought with me to Key West to cook 9 consecutive dinners for 16 people.  A ...

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Posted in Technique, Tools, Travel, Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Stress Free Key West Menu 2012

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 25, 2012

Beef short rib, cooked sous vide 48 hours at 140F/60C, finished on grill. Photo by Donna

It requires a certain amount of stress to cook for a lot of people. Otherwise you won’t get it done. Too much work, and therefore too much focus and efficiency to both get everything done and also enjoy yourself. You’ve got to like this very peculiar kind of stress.  Or like the release that inevitably follows. And it’s not the same kind of release as it is for the guy who, when asked why he’s banging his head against the wall, responds, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”  But it’s close. You’ve just got to have that kind of love-the-pressure, love-the-release to cook for a lot of people night after night. If you do, you can make ...

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Posted in Food Adventure, Technique, Tips, Travel | Tagged , , , | 27 Comments

Waiting For Donna

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 23, 2012

All photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

Race week in Key West is a massive boondoggle for me.  I wake, look out at the water, drink coffee, write until noon, personal writing, then head to the house where I cook for 12 to 16 people every night. I straighten the kitchen, throw away a few forgotten red plastic cups with limes floating in them, make a list, do some shopping, prep what can be done ahead (make some sauces, or a stock, pick and blanch green veg).  Then I go back to my room at The Galleon, condos right on the docks, and have some coffee and write and re-write some more. The boys return from being on the water and I put ...

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Posted in Food Adventure, Food Culture, Food Writing, Travel, Writing | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Key West—Gone Fishin’

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 19, 2012

Surf and turf for 17, last night

Working in the morning and cooking in the afternoon, and no time to post! Been having fun cooking nightly for a houseload of hungry sailors on a generous budget. Last night was steak and lobster and smashed potatoes and salad. Cooking mussels tonight, then wahoo (never cooked before, it will be interesting), saffron rice cooked in lobster stock (that I made this afternoon), asparagus, salad, and grilled baguettes.  As they are true to the sailing culture, the crew go in for liquid desserts which makes it easy for the cook! I also brought the Polyscience immersion circulator, it came in handy for the surf and turf last night. We worked together to get the lobsters all done expediently. I killed them first, Doug Moose separated the bodies and dropped them in ...

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Posted in Food Adventure, Seafood | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

An Amazing Response to Staple Meals

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 16, 2012

A weeknight braise of chicken in red wine, coq au vin, photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

Wow, what an amazing glimpse into what people are eating.  A lot of stir fries, a lot of curries, pastas, pot roasts, and eggs, American and international.  There are so many ideas in the previous post I feel like I should do something with them, make them more accessible. Of course, people who read this blog are people who care about food and who love to cook already. My goal has always been to encourage people who don’t cook, to know that cooking is not as difficult as people too often think it is.  All these great suggestions are more proof of this. Thank you all for reading and posting and sharing your meals. I’m currently in Key west cooking for a ...

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Posted in american regional cuisine, Chicken, Main Courses | 18 Comments

Ruhlman’s Twenty Giveaway!
What’s Your Best Staple Meal?

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 11, 2012

A roast chicken that has been brined, notice shiny skin. Photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

[Update 1/16: Winners have been chosen; their dishes are at the bottom of this post.] Two and a half years ago, I wrote a post on staple meals because I’m fascinated by what people eat at home when they don’t want to think about what to make, what their go-to, middle-of-the-week meal is, because they are invariably quick, efficient, economical, and well, good enough to eat once a week forever. (I think they also tell us a lot about who we are). The woman who has been cutting my hair for 12 years, three kids 16 and younger, husband not always at home, an “I don’t have a lot of time” mom. She makes chicken legs on a small rotisserie, and will do ...

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Posted in Books, Chicken, From Scratch, Giveaway, Kitchen Tips | Tagged , | 603 Comments

Dry-Cured Ham at Home

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 9, 2012

Ham, dry-cured for eight months, removed from bladder (this photo by iPhone, the ones below are by Donna)

On a recent trip to Charleston, SC, to promote Twenty, my first stop, thanks to a tweet from Ideas In Food was to the kitchen of Cypress, where chef Craig Deihl gave me a truly impressive tasting of his dry cured meats and sausages. Damn they were good—highly recommend you wonderful folks in Charleston stop in for a taste. One of the items he sliced for us he called "knuckle." Now one of the hardest parts of understanding salumi is getting a handle on terminology. When I inquired further he used the Italian term, fiocco, which is a name for a boned portion of the ham (the other larger boned cut is called culatello). The above cut ...

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Posted in Appetizers, Books, Butchery, Charcutepalooza, Charcuterie, Salumi | Tagged , , , , , | 20 Comments

Literary Interlude: Ann Patchett’s Getaway Car
A Review

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 6, 2012

My desk this morning, photo by iPhone

Looking to check out a new media format, the Kindle Single, I came across Ann Patchett's long essay The Getaway Car. I bought it for $3 and was reading away on my sleak Kindle Fire moments later. (Impulse purchasing = Danger!) In this case, the purchase was well worth it. The highly regarded novelist tells her story—every writer has a different one. Patchett, in easy, conversational prose (it kind of reads like a long email to an acquaintance), traces her course from a girl who knew she wanted to be a writer pretty much since she became conscious of being conscious, through college, the Iowa writing program, skipping over a brief marriage, work as a waitress at TGIFridays where she made up stories in her head, to teaching ...

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Posted in Uncategorized, Writing | 31 Comments

Chicken-Fried-Pork-Belly Caesar Salad

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: January 5, 2012

Chicken-Fried Pork Belly Ceasar/Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
[A fellow Twitter hound tweeted this post from last May and I thought, it's always a good time for more pork belly! Back to regular posting next week—M.R.] It is time again to bring out The Chicken-Fried Pork Belly Salad, which I created in August 2007 in the midst of my fury at the chief icon of American restaurant food: The Chicken Caesar.  Today's post was sparked by Sam Sifton's NYTimes magazine column on the Caesar salad, which addresses the fact that few dishes are truly authentic, and he uses the Caesar salad as an example. For me putting a chicken breast on a perfectly good Caesar is an emblem of American mediocrity, a lack of imagination, and our fear of food (The Shame of the Chicken Caesar Salad). ...

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Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Top Posts of 2011

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: December 31, 2011

Photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

The economy struggled but cooking and writing about food sure didn't! My colleague Emilia and I decided to have a look at the most popular—or most viewed is perhaps the better phrase—posts from this site this year. By far the most exciting blog event of the year was Cathy Barrow's and Kim Foster's Charcutepalooza. What an amazing thing happened, and all because of that catchy hashtag on Twitter. This would not have happened without Twitter. Congrats to all who participated and who pushed themselves to cook in unfamiliar and often difficult ways! Special congrats to Cecilia, who blogs at One Vanilla Bean, and Peter, who blogs at Cookblog, as the two year's end finalists. Good luck to you both! Top ruhlman.com posts from ...

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Posted in Appetizers, Article, baking, Books, Bread App, Charcutepalooza, Charcuterie, Technique, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

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