Happy Book Club Monday!

Every Monday, I review a book on food or cooking. It’s a great way to share what I am reading, hear your feedback, and learn about new titles from all of you. If you would like to view previous titles, check out the Badger Girl Book Shelf.

This week I am reviewing Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. 

Cover of Ruhlman's Ratio Book

Summary

Ratio is Ruhlman’s attempt to break down cooking into the most basic building blocks. Want to make sponge cake? 1 part flour, 1 part egg, 1 part sugar, and 1 part fat. Cooks rave about it because it allows them to create their own recipes using Ruhlman’s recipes.

It’s divided into five parts: Doughs and Batters, Stocks, Meat, Fat-Based Sauces, and Custard. Each part contains ratios for several types of the designated part, suggested recipes, and information on how he derived the ratio.

Confession

I hated it.

And I feel really bad about myself because I hated it. 

I should love this book, right? I mean, foodies everywhere think it’s awesome. Not to mention, I develop a lot of my own recipes so why wouldn’t I like it?

I could hide behind the reasoning that I have no desire to cook many of the ratios. I am trying to walk away from wheat, don’t do dairy, and Manatee won’t let me buy a meat grinder so I can’t make sausage.

But I have to be honest with you, that’s not the real reason I hated it.

This is not easy to admit.

I don’t think I am there yet in my cooking. I don’t want to do math when I am cooking. I am not so good at doing quantities with ratios (ask anyone who has witnessed my vats of stir fry on any given night) and sitting down with a calculator is not my idea of a good time. Even if I can drink wine when I do it, it just doesn’t sound fun.  When you are already pressed for time with your cooking, it just seemed too difficult. The book was hard to get into and I kept trying to find a section or a recipe that would hold my attention and I couldn’t.

Badger Girl Recipe Development

So,  how do I develop my own recipes?

This is another area that I am not proud to admit, but I will be honest.

I read a ton of different recipes. I generally can’t find what I am looking for in one recipe so I just keep looking at different ones and then I slowly piece together something that will meet our dietary needs and our taste buds. Trust me, this is not easy.

And then I do the most important part of the process: I screw it up. 

I make a TON of mistakes when I cook. Then I keep trying and each attempt gets me closer to what I am trying to do. The granola was a perfect example.

Badger Girl Granola 6.0

It was my sixth batch that finally made the cut. And to be honest, I am still perfecting it.

This is not efficient. 

This is not the textbook way of recipe development.

Some of you may lose some respect for me as a cook.

But to be even more honest, I have no desire to change at this point. 

As long as Manatee keeps enthusiastically eating my mistakes, I will keep making them. That’s the best way to learn about food, in my very humble opinion. Maybe when I ‘smarten up’ and want to be a real chef, I will read Ruhlman’s book again.

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How do you develop your recipes? Has anyone else read or used Ruhlman’s book?


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