Author Archives: Michael Ruhlman

Cinco De Mayo—Should It Be “Celebrated”

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 7, 2012

Chef Shaw Lash, below XOCO restaurant in Chicago

Having drinks last month with Shaw Lash, a Chicago chef, after a steller meal at Frontera Grill (Shaw works for executive chef Rick Bayless, renowned Mexican cuisine authority), and the subject of Cinco de Mayo came up. Shaw, who had a few month earlier showed me how they make their own chocolate, above, shook her head and said, "Don't get me started." But she started anyway. I said, "Want to write a guest post for my site?"

Just after Shaw sent me her post below this advert dropped into my mailbox. It seemed appropriate to lead with here. I'm actually a fan of Fox and Hound, where we play pool weekly.

By Shaw Lash I grew ...

Click to Continue Reading

DiggShare
Posted in chefs, Ethnic Cuisine, Food Culture, Food Writing, Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 61 Comments

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Whiskey Sour

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 4, 2012

The Whiskey Sour/Photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

I had my first cocktail with an egg white in it at The Best Bar in the World, and it was a revelation. A Ramos gin fizz. The egg white gave it the kind of body I'd never felt. (And nutrition! If LA starlets can call an egg white omelet a meal, I can call my cocktail a meal!) I've since become a huge fan of what an egg white can bring to a drink. I even put the VTR Whiskey Sour in Ruhlman's Twenty! Herewith the Friday Cocktail Hour a classic whiskey sour. It's typically made with bourbon, and that's fine, as is scotch. But after last week's Manhattan, which used Old Overholt Rye, I had a rye on the rocks to evaluate it ...

Click to Continue Reading

DiggShare
Posted in Books, Cocktails, Food Adventure, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 62 Comments

Culinary Intelligence—An Emerging Trend?

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: May 3, 2012

Crispy suckling pig from Maialino NYC/Photo by Ellen Silverman

I spent a couple days in New York last week meeting with two very good publishers, one of whom, a veteran and very smart editor, asked whether I'd thought about how busy people can actually integrate real cooking and real food into their daily lives. He wasn't talking about the crispy pig I had at Maialino hours later. That, as you can see, is real food and real good. (Two standbys for me in NYC, where I go just to feel good, because NYC makes me all jittery and my eyes go out of sync like that Mad-eye guy in Harry Potter but not in a useful way: Bar Boulud and any one of Danny Meyer's restaurants. It's not just the food, ...

Click to Continue Reading

DiggShare
Posted in Books, chefs, Food Adventure, Food Writing, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 167 Comments

Foie Gras Wars Back On

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: April 30, 2012

Foie Gras au Torchon/photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

I spotted a tiny news item in this morning's Plain Dealer, culled from The San Francisco Chronicle reports, and was thrilled to see people like Thomas Keller, Michael Chiarello, Tyler Florence, and scores of other chefs beginning to protest California’s hypocritical and uninformed ban on foie gras that goes into effect this summer. (Watch news story video from KCRA.) While likely begun as self-aggrandizing soap-boxing by former state Senator John Burton in 2004 (read his LA Times op-ed reasoning), as it was done by Chicago City Council Alderman Joe Moore in 2007, embarrassing the city, which repealed the law in 2008, we’re hoping that California legislators evaluate their actual motives for the ban. If they truly care about the humane treatment of the animals we ...

Click to Continue Reading

DiggShare
Posted in Article, Charcuterie, chefs, Ethnic Cuisine, Farming, Food Politics, food science, Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 137 Comments

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Manhattan

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: April 27, 2012

This is an old-fashioned Manhattan. With jarred maraschino cherries like my uncle Jon loved. But make a good one. With Fabbri cherries and good rye. Straight up. The skewer holding the cherries is an emblem of my childhood. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

I’m old-fashioned, I admit, and this is another Friday cocktail post devoted to classic cocktails. It’s not because I’m nostalgic (though I am). It’s because classics are classics for a reason: they’re good. There’s a reason you don’t have a Swanson’s TV dinner in your freezer but will never tire of a well-made Martini. My dad was a Martini man. He was also an Ad Man (who actually looked a lot like Don Draper), a creative director at a Cleveland ad firm where I interned the summer after my freshman year of college. ...

Click to Continue Reading

DiggShare
Posted in Cocktails, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 148 Comments

  • Welcome to Ruhlman.com where I blog about food, cooking, recipes and technique, because the world is better when we cook for ourselves. Thanks for visiting and I hope you’ll join the conversation.

    Follow Me on Pinterest

     

     
     

     

     

     

     

  • ruhlmanphotography.com


    Info on Donna's Ratio Chart and Photography


  • Kitchen Tools

    Click here to see my favorite kitchen tools.
    Go to my Open Sky store.


  • Recipes

  • Category Archive

watch full movies online for free on watch-funny-movies.com