Michael Ruhlman is the author of nine non-fiction books, one collection of novellas, and nine cookbooks. He has also co-authored ten other books with various chefs. Best known for writing about food, chefs and the work of professional cooking, he’s the recipient of three James Beard Awards and has also written for The New York Times, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Gourmet magazine, and other publications.
Of Ruhlman, the late Anthony Bourdain wrote, “Ruhlman sets out to perform a task even restaurant insiders would find difficult: to delve so deeply into the hearts and minds of a few select chefs that he may discover the essence of haute cuisine. Amazingly enough, he succeeds—by turning his investigation into an adventure story, a hold-your-breath-while-you-turn-the-page thriller that’s also an anthropological study of the culture of cooking.”
His work has received a Booklist starred review and has been featured on Forbes, The Atlantic, NPR, and has been profiled on the front page of The New York Times food pages. Ruhlman’s book, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, has sold over a quarter of a million copies in hardcover and is considered the bible on the subject of the craft. His most recent non-fiction publication is The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails, which has been hailed as “a relentlessly smart and helpful primer for cocktails” by Esquire. In June 2024, his YA novel, If You Can’t Take the Heat, was published by Penguin Random House.
Ruhlman lives with his wife, writer Ann Hood, in New York City and Providence, RI.
