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Michael Ruhlman

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Everything posted by Michael Ruhlman

  1. 1) Obviously, there are no hard and fast rules about school vs self taught. to be self taught you have to be lucky enough to find the right person to teach you the fundamentals (if you learn them imperfectly at the start the will put you way behind) and regardless how you learn, you have to have the goods (observation, intutition, craftsmanship, care, stamina). School ensures you are taught the basics right and quickly. There may be the Kellers and Trotters who are self taught but I'd wager most of the top, say, 50 American chefs in the country attended culinary school. 2) Keller adores ribs and other low brow food. You think he eats at the French Laundry every night. He likes a good ham, cheese and egg sandwhich after work. And yes he is enormously thoughtful about food, but he's also a very kind and thoughtful person, very elegant and thoughtful in conversation, and funny too.
  2. It will change by people like you requesting thick cuts of calves liver and observant cooks figuring out that in order to get a really nice crust on liver, it's got to be cut thick enough. Offal is slowly emerging, becoming more prominent. Keller likes offal because it tastes so interesting and because it give him a chance to really be a cook, to take what is considered garbage and make something astonishing with it--it satisfies botth the cook and the eater. Demand good offal, and send it back if it's not cooked right. Also, special order it from the butcher department or ask the meat growers at a growers market to get it for you.
  3. Thanks. Yeah, those store versions stocks and glaces are absolute garbage. Keep making good stock. Same method is perfect also for dried beans, shich should be cooked that gently to keep them intact.
  4. Julia, I believe, making a pie. My first effort was a pear pie using the only fruit in the house, canned pears. It was fun to make but not eat. Parents disproportionately proud. I think I just liked the craft project nature of it. It was fun to work with stuff that you could eat when you were done. I love to cook with the kids and encourage them to help. They love to see big transofrmations, like whipping eggwhites into meringue, then baking them. Just basic stuff, measuring ingredients, stirring pasta. Or using cool gadgets like a meat grinder or sausage stuffer. This is in the 4-8 year old range. As far as my own cooking goes it's like being in the restaurant again, they can be so damn picky I end up making four different meals every night. Hope you like the books!
  5. It will be in the style of the FLC. It will have both Jeffrey and Thomas in it, focusing on Thomas's beliefs about this kind of food, and the actual recipes from Bouchon. I hope to write a third book on the work of the professional cook soon. I haven't made brown sauce in ages. But I ought to. I've been asked to write a treatment for film based on Making of a Chef, or rather fictional story based at a culinary school and so was listening to Making of a Chef last week and that renewed my interest in the brown sauce. I really think more home cooks ought to have that on hand. (Brown roux, of course.)
  6. I'm afraid that's almost exactly right (I'm no longer admitted to the French Laundry, alas).
  7. I don't make money unless I write so I don't have the time to go fallow. I'm always planning the next book. Part of the writing life, for better or worse.
  8. Book began because of my love of duck confit and the fact that duck confit's raison d'etre is preservation rather than taste. Charcuterie is all about preservation, and even though refrigerators preserve things great today, we still practice charcuterie because it results in awesome food. Charcuterie, originally from the word for pork butcher, is the specialty conserning preserved foods, especially pork, such as confit, rillettes, pates, bacon, fresh sausages, dried sausages, etc. In the book we explore methods of preservation that result in amazing food. Would also like to make things like pates and rillettes and confits more accessible to the home cook. First draft is done, now lots of recipe testing and editing. You'll have to tell me how it worked out!
  9. Culinary school gives you a broad base fast. Apprenticeship depends on finding a great chef to train under, a little more risky, a little less efficient. After culinary school, you go out and apprentice anyway (or ought to) so the question is not culinary school vs apprenticship but rather culinary school or no culinary school.
  10. It changed pretty much everything. not just cooking, though it did that. I went in as a hobby cook, I needed a recipe, I didn't know what a proper stock tasted like, I hadn't a clue how to salt food, let along make a sauce, braise a lamb shank properly, etc. But in giving me a culinary foundation in the basics, how to salt, make a stock a sauce etc, it allowed me to go into any kitchen anywhere and feel at home, I could write about it in ways that people had yet to write about the work of cooking. More: it taught me how to focus and how to avoid laziness, and excuses. There are no excuses in a kitchen, it's either done on time or it's not, you're either there or you're not. Nothing else is relevant. I either wrote the book or I didn't, I either got that day's 1400 words done or I didn't--and I'd be damned if I got beat. Once I learned the basics, I could go anywhere. I loved that place and still do. Very important place in my life. Thanks for asking.
  11. Thanks so much. It amazes and heartens me to know someone reads the book more than once, what an honor. I remember that bread that I made with Jason Dante well (anyone know where that guy is? would love to hear from him, he was great). It was a basic bread dough with 25 percent cornmeal dough (cornbread) with plenty of chipotles in adobo sauce and some roasted poblanos. Very good and I've made it since, once threw it on the grill and cooked it over charcoal--very tasty. You should try it.
  12. Thanks for those comments. Yes, Lola is still rockin. He just opened a beautiful teaching kitchen and some private dining rooms, very good stuff. I like to make fun of Mr. Bourdain because the slick TEEveestar persona is so at odds with the bad ass cook that made him famous in the first place. Maybe he can't cook himself out of a paper bag, never had his food, but I do know the guy sure can write. He's also an incredibly generous guy, not to mention hilarious. I'm a huge fan of his.
  13. Thanks for all those comments. Very grateful for them. Sure I do stuff from French Laundry Cookbook, but I don't think I ever do a whole dish, like rouget with the parsley coulis and garlic chips etc. That's restaurant food and not how I want to cook at home. But that book is also excellent on technique and the basics. I know one culinary school uses it as teach textbook because the basics are so on the money (and lucidly described, if I do say so myself). I'm most likely to make the angolotti dough and fill the pasta with what's on hand. I love to cook lobster that way and have done the lobster with leeks and beets which is awesome and not too difficult. Few things in that book are difficult--it's the quantity of steps involved that can make it so daunting. My advice is to pick and choose your elements and plan to take your time, leave a big expanse of time in front of you so you can enjoy the process.
  14. Never been there. Fascinating very intellectualized food, very heavily manipulated. No doubt El Bulli kitchen would be fascinating to hang out in and write about.
  15. That's a really interesting question, because I don't have an answer. I'm doing the stuff I care about, that I love, such as writing about pork belly and sausage and duck confit, and about the classics of French peasant food such as onion soup and how to perfect it. I think I'd like one day to write a book about the basics of cooking as I've learned them and an exploration of cooking ratios, because to me that's the essence of cooking and getting to the essense of something you love is a great goal any way you look at it.
  16. I hadn't read that about the lead--and she may well be right. Can you make stock by starting with hot water, sure. But why would you need to start with hot. If you're really crunched for time, that may be necessary, but if you're crunched for time and just starting your stock you've probably got bigger problems to worry about. I believe that starting with cold stock is better because it allows you to get rid of more of the impurities and scum early in the stock making process. I believe that the slow rise in temperature is more effective because of that. Certainly if you're blanching beef or veal bones, the slow rise in temp gets more blood and crap out of the bones for a cleaner stock. My personal observation and practice.
  17. Obviously, his mastery of fish cookery is unmatched as far as I know. For the book he cooked all kinds of food. The finesse was no different. He's an amazing cook. As I think I mentioned, the way he seasoned food was particularly impressive. I'd taste something and it would be great, and then he'd add a little vinegar, a little cayenne, a little espelette, a little Tabasco and it would be even better. Is he limited by fish? No. It's the same thing no matter what he cooks--it's a quality, a standard, that's so exciting to eat.
  18. Mr. TEEvee, I'm glad to know you still vouchesafe to listen to the little people. Am I a communist? More to the point: why did the producers cut the scene of you Eric and Scott taking a leak on what was to become a corn and pumpkin patch across the street from the French Laundry, and, and, what were you ingesting that night that resulted in the astonishing fertility of that patch--have you seen that corn, have you seen the size of those pumpkins? As for the Tribe, God bless em. I checked out when they shitcanned Hardgrove. Never been the same. (Send us an email from Vietnam. And don't stop writing.)
  19. Use half of some of that good port and half of a huge zinfandel.
  20. Who needs questions?! I will take that kind of comment any day. Thank you. I'm grateful. Cook well!
  21. 1. No plans, though we both liked doing it. glad you liked it, maybe one day again. 2. You're absolutely right. I am always blown away by service there. Laura Cunningham is the unsung, hugely unsung hero of the FL. You can be Keller times ten but if your front of the house is mediocre, you're sunk. There ought to be a front of the house book. They make it look so easy. That's the beauty of it. They always blow me away. I like to just watch them work other tables.
  22. You and everyone are more than welcome, happy to answer questiongs. Though yours is difficult--no I don't know. Keller's one of a kind, and there may be five more coming up or about to emerge or maybe even out there cooking away in obscurity at failing restaurants (as keller did for most of his career). Honestly, I don't know--but someone surely will. Bourdain, of course, might have been able to do it ... but he sold out to TEEvee.
  23. Keep my own voice from intruding? It intruded constantly. The trick was making the intrusions invisible. With Keller, I think I just got lucky. I understand exactly what he means to say. ripert is a little different, very smart very articulate (in his third language btw), and I don't think in his voice, but now that you made me think about it, it's a form of mimicry. some people are good at mimicking peoples voices aloud, I think I've learned (through too many interviews of other people) to mimic people on the page. You've got to hang out awhile. I take a lot of notes and I record some conversations.
  24. they're usually pretty interesting people. they almost never do it for the money, unlike say Bourdain, and that makes them intersting--they do it because they love what they do. They're connected to the things that matter, and (if they're good) they know what the fuck they're talking about, and I like that kind of person. See Frank Moga in Walk On Water. He woulda made a damn good cook.
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