egg | Michael Ruhlman

It’s been a busy year. I published two books, How To Roast this past fall, the first in a series of technique books, and a big book on the Egg this past spring. I continue to love the dialogue that some of the opinion pieces here inspire; I’m gratified by the enthusiasm with which the Friday Cocktail Hour was greeted (and lamented, perhaps it will return). And people enjoy the recipes when they appear, whether from me of a guest poster. The following are the top rated posts from 2014 and all of these categories are represented. The Opinion Posts, on our health and the importance of cooking, both reported and rant-only: Don’t Eat Healthy Carb Confusion: An internist at the Cleveland Clinic, who has a deep interest in nutrition, talked to me last Read On »

It’s been a busy publishing year, both frustrating (for many, many months Amazon made it hard for people to buy my books, mine and thousands of others, due to a dispute with Hachette) and exciting. I don’t think I’ve ever published two books in the same year. The big book is Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World’s Most Versatile Ingredient. (Chris Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen last week picked it as one of his favorites. Thanks Chris, and sorry no macarons! The egg is inexhaustible; I couldn’t put every form of meringue in there!) My publisher, Little, Brown, also created an absolutely killer interactive iBook based on the ingenious egg flow chart I created. Yes, ingenious. Ferran Adrià even said so! The second book is Ruhlman’s How to Roast: Foolproof Techniques and Recipes for the Home Cook, Read On »

I’m at Old Dominion University as a writer in residence and also opening up the annual literary festival, which is devoted this year to food and literature. (If you’re in or near Norfolk, come to the open reading this Monday at 7:30.) Back when I began The Making of a Chef, there really wasn’t a job description “food writer,” or rather it wasn’t something that one aspired to. Yes, newspaper reporters covered food, and there were plenty of food magazines. But you weren’t likely to see lit fests devoted to it. But that’s changing, for the better, as we recognize how deeply and pervasively food affects our lives. And I think this applies to cooking as well. Cooking our own food (or not cooking it) has a significant impact on the quality of our lives. I can’t Read On »

At an event to promote my new book on the mighty egg, I did a demo of some simple egg dishes with my friend and Cleveland chef, Doug Katz. He had prepared deviled eggs ahead of time, and I was struck by his decision to cut the eggs through their equator rather than lengthwise. He then sliced off some of the white at the bottom so that the eggs rested flat in a large tray. What a brilliant idea! Why hadn’t I thought of this? My only problem with deviled eggs is that I love them so much; but, because they’re so big, I can eat only so many. Doug came up with a solution: Removing a chunk of the white means that each deviled egg is a little smaller and easier to eat, and Read On »

Egg promotion is winding down, but what a lot of attention it got! (NPR’s Steve Inskeep talked to me about it on Morning Edition. It inspired an egg-centric stroll through Manhattan with NYTimes reporter Alex Witchel. It was covered favorably in Sunday’s NYTBR by William Grimes. Debbi Snook covered it for my hometown paper. And the Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt on page one of its weekend section.) But now that the fun is subsiding, I reflect on where it began: for me with this humble frittata. In fourth grade someone told me or I saw on TV how to make one. And so, home alone with only four channels to entertain me, the video game Pong a blip on the horizon, and hungry, really hungry, I made the above. It was not just the creation itself that Read On »

Posts Categorized: egg

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My Books for Cooks

Chawanmushi

Deviled Egg Bar

It Begins When You Make a Frittata