Americans are on a roll in the kitchen--we've never been better or
smarter about cooking. But how does a beginning cook become good, a good
cook great?
Modeled on Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, The Elements of
Cooking is an opinionated volume by Michael Ruhlman--the award-winning
and bestselling author of The Making of a Chef and coauthor of The
French Laundry Cookbook--that pares the essentials of good cooking into
a slim, easy-to-take-anywhere book. It will also stand alongside a
handful of classics of the kitchen, just as Strunk and White's book sits
on the desk of every writer and every English student.
Not only does this book deconstruct the essential knowledge of the
kitchen, it also takes what every professional chef knows instinctively
after years of training and experience and offers it up cleanly and
brilliantly to the home cook.
With hundreds of entries from acid to zester, here is all the
information--no more and no less--you need to cook, as well as countless
tips (including only one recipe in the entire book, for the "magic
elixir of the kitchen") and no-nonsense advice on how to be a great
cook. You'll learn to cook everything, as the entries cover all the key
moves you need to make in the kitchen and teach you, for example, not
only what goes into a great sauce but how to think about it to make it
great.
Eight short, beautifully written essays outline what it takes not merely
to cook but to cook well: understanding heat, using the right tools
(there are only five of them), cooking with eggs, making stock, making
sauce, salting food, what a cook should read, and exploring the elusive,
most important skill to have in the kitchen, finesse.
