Michael Ruhlman
The Making Of A Chef: Mastering Heat At The Culinary Institute Of America

The Making Of A Chef: Mastering Heat At The Culinary Institute Of America

If you've ever daydreamed about what it might be like to attend culinary school, wonder no longer: you can vicariously experience the training of a top-tier chef through the eyes of journalist Ruhlman, who talked his way into the CIA because he thought the resulting experience would make for a good book. He was right. Ruhlman finds the CIA to be a world of imposing personalities, towering egos, high drama, and amazing food. You'd never guess that the making of a brown sauce, the unmolding of a terrine, or the trussing of a chicken could be occasions for high drama, but in Ruhlman's hands, these culinary adventures read like the pages of a spy thriller. The first of a trilogy.

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Ruhlman’s Chef Trilogy

Ruhlman’s Chef Trilogy

In The Making of a Chef, journalist Ruhlman enrolls at the Culinary Institute of America to discover how top-tier chefs are trained. In The Soul of a Chef, Ruhlman studies what makes a chef great, observing the Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America and profiling successful celebrity chefs Michael Symon at Lola and Thomas Keller at The French Laundry. In The Reach of a Chef, Ruhlman explores the paradox of every profession: get good enough at what you do, and soon you’ll be managing the work instead of doing it yourself.

Ruhlman excels at injecting a sense of drama into his food writing: he draws strong characters and is able to turn something as simple as preparing a classic sauce into a dramatic event.

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The Main Dish

The Main Dish

Michael Ruhlman has written more than a dozen books on cooking and has worked with an impressive list of chefs (among them Thomas Keller, Michael Symon, Eric Ripert). Ruhlman knew since he was a kid that he wanted to write for a living, but he never intended to be a food writer. In this Kindle single (10,000 words/35 pages, and just $2), Ruhlman shares the improbable story of how he found his calling. Remember, he’s friends with Bourdain--this one’s briefly crude at two or three places.

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Ruhlman’s Twenty: 20 Techniques, 200 Recipes, A Cook’s Manifesto

Ruhlman’s Twenty: 20 Techniques, 200 Recipes, A Cook’s Manifesto

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I'm a fan of Ruhlman's food writing, and his recipes work. From the publisher: "Twenty distills Ruhlman's decades of cooking, writing, and working with the world's greatest chefs into twenty essential ideas from ingredients to processes to attitude that are guaranteed to make every cook more accomplished. "

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The Soul of a Chef: The Journey toward Perfection

The Soul of a Chef: The Journey toward Perfection

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From the publisher: "This fascinating book will satisfy any reader's hunger for knowledge about cooking and food, the secrets of successful chefs, at what point cooking becomes an art form, and more. Like Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, this is an instant classic in food writing-one of the fastest growing and most popular subjects today." A former Summer Reading Guide pick.

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The French Laundry Cookbook

The French Laundry Cookbook

$11.99$2.99

The kindle edition doesn't look super impressive on your coffee table like the massive hardcover, but hey, it's $3. Written by Michael Ruhlman and Thomas Keller, the stories behind The French Laundry and these chefs' two careers are fascinating (and beautifully illustrated).

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Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America

Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America

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I'm a fan of Michael Ruhlman, a former Summer Reading Guide author. Ruhlman has written more than a dozen books on cooking and has worked with an impressive list of chefs. Ruhlman knew since he was a kid that he wanted to write for a living, but he never intended to be a food writer. From the publisher: "In a culture obsessed with food—how it looks, what it tastes like, where it comes from, what is good for us, [Ruhlman] dives into the mysterious world of supermarkets and the ways in which we produce, consume, and distribute food. But rather than waxing nostalgic for the age of mom-and-pop shops, Ruhlman seeks to understand how our food needs have shifted since the mid-twentieth century, and how these needs mirror our cultural ones. A mix of reportage and rant, personal history and social commentary."

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Ruhlman’s How to Roast: Foolproof Techniques and Recipes for the Home Cook

Ruhlman’s How to Roast: Foolproof Techniques and Recipes for the Home Cook

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I'm a fan of Ruhlman's food writing, and his recipes work. From the publisher: "In this first in a new series of books focusing on cooking methods, an award-winning cookbook author, food writer, and online culinary expert explores one of the most fundamental cooking techniques: roasting. Humankind has been roasting for millennia. Michael Ruhlman has developed a reputation for providing lucid, no-nonsense cooking advice as sharp as a good chef's knife. 'Of all our cooking terms," Ruhlman writes, "sautéed, grilled, poached, broiled -- I believe roasted is the most evocative adjective we can attach to our food, conjuring as it does ideas of deep rich flavors and delicious browning.' Ruhlman's How to Roast combines practical advice -- what tools you need, staple ingredients to have on hand, how to get the most out of your oven -- with 20 original and mouthwatering recipes, step-by-step illustration as well as finished-dish showpieces."

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