I can already feel Donna rolling her eyes. I'm like that, um, ham, who runs out onto a Broadway stage and flings out his arms ... and then silence. Well, it is my theater here, and I don't exactly sell tickets, and at least it's not a political ad!
Brian Polcyn and I are very proud of our new book, Salumi: The Italian Craft of Dry Curing, about how to make your own pancetta, guanciale, coppa, and other dry-cured wonders in the grand and ancient tradition of Italy. There's a reason one of the oldest examples of early civilization still exists. Because everyone can do it, and because it's delicious. Granted, not everyone wants a piece of meat hanging from the chandelier for three weeks, but for those demented and wonderful souls who do, this book is for you. You see it increasingly in restaurants throughout the country—and where chefs dare tread, home cooks follow.
Salumi exists because the most unlikely of publishing phenomenons happened: Charcuterie. Our last book together, that is, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing. This book is nothing but a thinly veiled love song to animal fat and salt, America's two primary bugaboos. Publisher's Weekly put it bluntly: "Ruhlman and Polcyn present an arsenal of recipes that take hours, and sometimes days, to prepare; are loaded with fat; and, if ill-prepared, can lead to botulism." Try to sell that to a publisher! Well, we did, for a pittance, but we loved-loved-loved our subject. The PW review continues: "The result is one of the most intriguing and important cookbooks published this year." That was 2005, and this paean to animal fat and salt has sold more than 100,000 copies, and we hear it is the most stolen cookbook in restaurant kitchens nationwide. Girls, the guys love this book; guys, if your girl loves to meet to eat meat, this is for her.
The book closest to my heart is Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, a Cook's Manifesto. I continue to pare down and isolate the fundamentals so that we can be more free and efficient in the kitchen (important given the fact that cooking food is fundamental to our humanity). All you really need to know to cook basically everything is twenty fundamentals. This is a book for people who want to understand how cooking works, inside the hood as it were (recipes are the body and trim, techniques are the engine). It's also a book for those who like or need to cook and want to cook better. My wife Donna did all the photography and the food is not styled but shot as I made it so you can see what food can look like when you know the basics. I dislike over-stylized food photography that makes home cooks feel like failures because "that's not how it looked in the magazine." Well, that's because you're not cooking it to photograph it, but rather to eat it. Most—although not all—food that gets photographed in studios gets dumped, not worth eating. That weekday coq au vin on page 52: dinner! Ditto the lamb shank. That angel food cake? I couldn't eat it because the kids got to it first!
Twenty won both the James Beard Foundation Award and the IACP award for general cooking. Donna and I are really proud of it. It was so successful that the publisher failed to print enough copies and it was sold out last year, in December. Zippo, no books. December, prime book-buying month of the year! I went to a signing at the wonderful Heirloom Books in Charleston, SC, and they had to turn people away because they had no books. So, to piss off the publisher this year, I'm doing a big giveaway of the book next week, signed copies, for free, that they sent me. To piss them off. (Kidding, of course; Chronicle Books, did a fabulous job. I've never been more pleased with a book's design, feel, heft, everything. I love this book.)
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking and The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft For Every Kitchen also strive to simplify the work of cooking, because it is work, but it's really, really important that we cook our own food. Our future in many ways depends on it.
The book I'm proudest of having written has to do with craftsmanship but not food: it's about the world of pediatric heart surgery. It's called Walk on Water. I wanted to subtitle it something like "Travels in the Harrowing Jungles of Heart Surgery on Babies." The publisher made me go conservative with "Inside an Elite Pediatric Heart Surgery Unit." OK, you're a publisher, you know what you're doing and I can live with that. But the booked tanked—its publication party took place on the night of shock and awe, the Iraq war, March 2003, thank you, W. (We all remember where we were on 9/11; I was interviewing a nurse at the bedside of a baby who was not doing well; I looked across the hall and saw an anesthesiologist gaping at a TV screen in an empty ICU room.) Well, what's done is done. But no! The publisher issued the paperback and changed the subtitle to "The Miracle of Saving Children's Lives." Now, I could go George Carlin—mellow, ironic, cynical—or Lewis Black—spluttering, outraged, maniacal!—but I'll just say that when a publisher turns your book jacket into a fucking greeting card it kills the soul a little and makes you hate people.
But not my beloved and cherished readers who will share in my rage, rage! (see, I got three comedians into this bit). I'm also proud of my other book about craftsmen, Wooden Boats: In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard, about a year working in one of the few plank-on-frame yards in the country in Vineyard Haven, MA.
My most beloved culinary nonfiction seems to be The Soul of a Chef: The Pursuit of Perfection, closely followed by The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America, followed by The Reach of a Chef: Professional Cooking in the Age of Celebrity, each book about differing aspects of the endlessly fascinating, brutal, elegant, metaphor-for-life professional kitchen.
And did you know my first book was about a boys' school that was defiantly all-boys? Yep, says so right here in the New York Times.
I reported The French Laundry Cookbook, and ghost wrote the remaining Thomas Keller cookbook series. which includes Bouchon, Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, and Ad Hoc at Home, all of them stunners created by a big and talented team. The most recent of these is The Bouchon Bakery cookbook and it gets the lead mention in the NYTBR cookbook round-up this Sunday. It's one of the best books on baking I know of.
And last but not least, a great stocking stuffer, my essay-long memoir on How I Became a Food Writer Without Ever Wanting to Be One, a Kindle Single called The Main Dish, readable on any device via the Kindle app, including iPads and laptops. I wrote this because I wanted to. I mean, how did this all happen, and why? It's important that we stop every now and then and answer these questions.
How did this happen and why?
The shopping links for the week:
© 2012 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2012 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.
Lene Johansen
You run out there and sell all you want, because your stuff rocks! I am glad to see a writer that aren't afraid to shamelessly sell his writing. I am watching and learning!
Michael Ruhlman
thank you!
Dean
Michael, I may be one of the lucky few who bought Walk on Water and have recommended it to numerous friends. As much as I like your cookbooks, I liked this better. Perhaps it's because a friend's son was saved by one of the doctors you mention in the book, but I didn't know that until long after I read and thoroughly enjoyed it. The way you captured the nature of the doctors and staff was outstanding and you made the incredibly complex medical facts approachable . It's disappointing that it didn't do better financially, but you should be proud of that book.
Erin
The year after I bought 'Ratio' I used it on at least a weekly basis. Now, less so, but it's because I have the ratios memorized. I love your books! 'Salumi' is actually on my Christmas list this year.
Carrie
Howling with laughter over here in Pennsylvania--your honesty and self-effacement is much appreciated. And there's no shame in telling us about your catalog. I imagine some readers may just be discovering you for the first time--how exciting to be early in the romance of discovering a new author/cook/food person! Reading this post makes me realize that I've had one of your books on my Christmas list nearly every year for the past five years. That's an indefatigable pace you keep there, sir.
Victoria
Did I read this too quickly or is House: A Memoir not here? It's a good one!
Twenty is an EXCELLENT book. I have been cooking for many, many years, and your recipe for Coq au Vin is fabulous. It beats every other recipe I've tried, including those of the usual suspects. The book is beautiful, the writing is clear, the recipes work.
Bouchon Bakery is on my Christmas list. I thought I would pass on it, but after perusing it, no way. I had not heard or seen the bread book you wrote about in your last post, but that's on my list now too.
Witloof
Is the memoir you wrote about renovating your house out of print? I really liked that one, too.
When people ask me for entertaining food related books, I always recommend Soul and Making. They're real page turners!
Beth
What Lene said! I own four of your books now (Charcuterie, Salumi, Ad Hoc At Home, The Reach of a Chef) and have both Twenty and Ratio on my wishlist; I hope someone buys at least one for me. And I adore the backstories in this post. Thank you for sharing them!
Jonathan
House: A Memoir still out there!: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0143036645/ruhlmancom
Gave this to my wife as we were moving to Cleveland. Still don't own a house, but definitely enjoyed the book...
ruhlman
I really appreciate all these comments. Many thanks for your encouraging words!
Mike Romeo
Reading your thoughts on your books has me thinking about House and Wooden Boats, which I loved as much as your "Chef" trio. It also has me wondering if you plan on returning to non-fiction, non-food related books? I always told people back in the day you were my "current favorite non-fiction writer", when recommending your various books. Though now, everyone seems to know you as a food writer. What American crafts could use the attention?
ruhlman
I just finished a novella I'm trying to sell. And I like my Kindle Single a lot, mainly about writing and the writing life. Thanks for the kind words. But it seems to be the food work that sells, so I'm forced by circumstance (and love) to stick to food.
Feroz
Danielle, I know it sounds cliehcd, but I hope you know how much I mean this: I feel your pain! Because it is so, so painful. Still, I agree with you completely: there is greatness in these difficult temperments (by the way, the strong-willed child book just made me depressed, convincing me the teenage years would be even worse, which I now do not think is necessarily true). Praying for you and your beautiful boy!
Michael K
I've read Walk on Water perhaps 10 times. My copy is absolutely battered. That book always gives me a model for excellence: in particular, focus, organization, and perspective. Michael, your food books are among the best in the genre, but Walk on Water is one of the best, most important pieces of writing I've ever come across anywhere. (And as a fellow journalism alumnus from a top-10 school, I read a *lot*.)
ruhlman
Wow, that means a lot to me. Thank you. Hope you tell people! Again, thanks.
Akkarin
I think no facial hair November is a good idea.Because that would ildnuce no eyebrows too, right?I think a month of everyone with no eyebrows and thereby looking surprised all the time would be awesome.
Nick
Hi Michael, I'm a big fan and either own or have read many of your books. I have both Charcuterie and Salumi, and I was wondering if you have any information on, or ever thought about writing a small book on maybe building your own cellar to hang and age the meat products? I live in a climate that is not conducive to many of the products in your books, (believe me, I've tried!) and some people I've talked to have mentioned that maybe they would work better in a cellar that is a constant temperature and with constant humidity. Any thoughts?
Cheers!
ruhlman
It's a great idea!
Victoria
If you're taking suggestions, I would like to own a Michael Ruhlman special tome on stock making. I know you cover this in your other books, but I think a more exhaustive account of stock making would be seriously appreciated.
Now I'm going away to order Walk on Water.
BLH
Love reading your books, makes everything so much more approachable and feels like solid reasoning behind it all.
csilverberg
I use your book religiously especially since i am a kosher chacuterexperimenter (its a new word I am trying to make it a thing(no I am not, I just like the new word i made up for our comments section)).