Michael Ruhlman is one of my favorite authors, not just because his books are packed with great recipes and amazing techniques that will transform your cooking, but also because he's a really nice guy. When a group of online cooking friends from across the US decided to gather in Cleveland, Ohio in the late aughts for a weekend of food and camaraderie, we were able to arrange a demonstration and talk with the author, between the publication of his books The Elements of Cooking and Ratio. He was as gracious and lovely as you could imagine.

Therefore I was delighted to learn that Ruhlman has signed a contract with Scribner to write another cookbook. The impetus for this book is the fact that his most popular cookbook, Ruhlman's Twenty, is going out of print this year. Since Twenty is all about the fundamentals of cooking, which don't change, Ruhlman would like to keep that information available to home cooks. He envisions taking the best of Ratio and Twenty, and adding to them new basics that he believes will be "fundamental to the contemporary home cook of today." Ruhlman thinks this is "especially important at a time when most people simply cook off their phones, cooking whatever the algorithms burp up."

On his Substack post announcing the forthcoming book, Ruhlman also waxed poetic about some of his favorite cookbooks, including Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. He is also soliciting suggestions from readers to guide the path his cookbook takes. He asks: "If you’re a cookbook lover and user, would you tell me what you’d like to see from me and the new book based on the fundamentals?" It isn't often that a cookbook author asks us what we want in a book, so take advantage of this opportunity to add your two cents' worth—before Twenty and the penny both disappear.