I agree about Rhulman... read his bio and determine IF you want to trust him when it comes to curing meats etc...
Michael Carl Ruhlman (born July 28, 1963) is an American
author, home cook and entrepreneur.
[1][2][3]
He has written 17 books including non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and books on cooking. He has co-authored nine books with American chefs.
Contents
Early life
Michael Carl Ruhlman was born in
Cleveland, Ohio, and was educated at
University School, a private boys' day school in
Cleveland's suburbs, and at
Duke University, from which he graduated in 1985.[
citation needed]
Career
Ruhlman worked a series of odd jobs (including a brief stint at
The New York Times) and traveled before returning to his hometown in 1991, to work for a local magazine.
While working at the magazine, Ruhlman wrote an article about his old high school and its new headmaster, which he expanded into his first book,
Boys Themselves: A Return to Single-Sex Education (1996).
For his second book,
The Making of a Chef (1997), Ruhlman enrolled in the
Culinary Institute of America, taking a variety of classes but not graduating, to produce a first-person account—of the techniques, personalities, and mindsets—of culinary education at the prestigious chef's school.
[4] The success of this book produced two follow-ups,
The Soul of a Chef (2000) and
The Reach of a Chef (2006).
Ruhlman has also collaborated with chef
Thomas Keller to produce the cookbooks
The French Laundry Cookbook (1999),
Bouchon (2004),
Under Pressure (2008), and
Ad Hoc At Home (2009),
Bouchon Bakery (2012); with French chef
Eric Ripert and Colombian artist
Valentino Cortazar to produce the lavish coffee-table book
A Return to Cooking (2002); and with Michigan chef
Brian Polcyn to produce
Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing (2005) and
Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing (2012). In 2009 Ruhlman also collaborated with fellow Clevelander and
Iron Chef Michael Symon on Symon's first cookbook
Live to Cook.
2007, he produced
The Elements of Cooking based on the structure of the classic grammar book
The Elements of Style. The book includes essays about the importance of fundamentals in cooking such as heat, salt and stock, along with a reference guide to cooking terms. Much of the insight in the book is based on his previous food-related experiences at the Culinary Institute of America and from working with celebrity chefs.[
citation needed]
2009, he published
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, a book that explores basic preparations—bread, pie dough, custards—and explains that knowing the proportions of the ingredients by weight can free users from strict adherence to recipes.
[5]
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