Michael Ruhlman, the boysih author of ruhlman.com, is one of the country's leading food philosophers. Mark Bittman, at NYTimes.com, may have a bigger platform, but Ruhlman's got the science of food down to a science. A journalist, he became a cook by attending the Culinary Institute of America in order to write "The Making of a Chef." Since then, starting with "The French Laundry Cookbook," he's written a string of culinary standards that mix theory and practice ("The Soul of a Chef," "The Elements of Cooking," "Ratio"). And he keeps writing turning out books about esoteric, non-culinary subjects like wooden boats and pediatric surgery.

The latest volume is called "Ruhlman's Twenty." It breaks cooking down into a series of techniques, starting with the most fundamental of fundamentals: Think. If you don't think for yourself, you'll be a slave forever to incomprehensible recipes on index cards. The second item is Salt, which has become a bugaboo in much of today's nit-picking, self-absorbed, too-delicate-to-eat-real-food society. Then the rest of the culinary basics: water, onions, eggs, butter, doughs and batters, vinaigrettes, sauces, soups, and so on.

As for technicues, Boiling was covered in the Water chapter, so it's on to Sauté, Roast, Braise, Fry, Poach, Grill and Chill. Ruhlman apologizes for including the fundamental technique of making stock in his chapter on water, redeeming himself with separate chapters for soup-making and poaching. Along the way, you get 100 step-by-step recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs by Ruhlman's wife, Donna Turner.

Ruhman isn't a stickler for fancy equipment. A couple of good knives, a couple of frying pans, a couple of pots, a blender, a few measuring cups and bowls, an instant-read thermometer. He also sells a set of handy "offset" tasting spoons.on his website, but you don't really need them.

If I have a gripe with this book, it's the absence of any mention at all of olive oil, a fat that's more popular world-wide than butter, and no less versatile. That, and Ruhlman's timidity with salting the water for pasta: it should be the salinity of the sea, three percent, not his timid one percent. There's a passing reference to sous-vide cooking, and nothing at all about "passive cooking," the notion that food cooks perfectly well in the residual heat of the oven or the pasta pot.

Anyway, as we mentioned in the headline, Ruhlman's on a tour to promote his new book, and will be in Seattle tomorrow night. Tom Douglas is throwing him a dinner with a five-course menu of dishes from the book.

Tickets cost $100, which includes a signed copy of "Ruhlman's Twenty." It starts at 6:30 on Tuesday, Novembr 29th, at at Dahlia Lounge, 2001 Fourth Avenue, Seattle. For additional information and a link to reservations, click here.

Filed in Food and tagged cookbooks, michael ruhlman

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