We are back in Cincinnati and reincorporating ourselves into the real world. For those of you who might not have known or cared, we were in Oklahoma for a few days staying with some truly wonderful people. The Pioneer Woman, Marlboro Man, and the Punks showed us what it’s like to live life as ranchers. It was a beautiful sight to see. And it smelled like cow poop.
Over the next several days I plan to help my offspring forget the many punk-like things she learned from them boys. Punks.
Ex. A:
Ex. B:
Ex. C:
It was an amazing time and certainly not something we’ll ever forget. We did a lot of cooking while we were at the lodge and good bit of eating too. Those two always go so well together. I’ve never been a “recipe-person” and it’s difficult for me to tell people exact amounts of things when cooking.
Perhaps my brain is broken.
What I do understand is ratios. I really like understanding why things do what they do when you cook them. I want to know WHY it tastes like that if you sear it in a pan. I want to know WHY it takes longer to do this with that type of flour or WHY it doesn’t work if you don’t preheat the oven.
Recipes have always felt like something that you’re chained to. My goal has always been to be able to make something work and make it delicious with the ingredients that I have on hand. That has become much easier as I have started learning about ratios. Ratios are the culinary secrets that chef’s use to take a meal in whatever direction they want.
If a chef looks in the refrigerator and sees that he has only eggs, but remembers that he has flour in the cabinet…he knows that he’s got what he needs for fresh pasta. If he knows that he requires 3 parts flour and 2 parts eggs to make a fresh pasta…he’s set.
I feel like Michael Ruhlman’s book, RATIO, was written to me. It is filling in all the little cracks that just didn’t make sense all the way. This book is devoted to freeing people from recipe-slavery. The simple codes inside of this book will change the way you approach cooking forever. Rather than having another cook book, how about a cheat sheet with the answers to incredible foods.
I need to give you this book.
Here’s what you need to do:
Leave a comment below listing your favorite childhood dish. We all had a grandma or father or weird aunt that had that amazing homemade bread or something that we just wish we could recreate.
What was yours?
Comments will be closed @ 8am, May 21st and I’ll randomly select 3 winners and send you a free copy of Ratio by Michael Ruhlman.
