I am calling this post Techniques R20 because over the next many months I will be trying to learn something from “Ruhlman’s Twenty”, a book about the twenty most important techniques of cooking as determined by Michael Ruhlman after going to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), writing tons of cookbooks and working with famous chefs, most notable to me is Thomas Keller, owner of the French Laundry and lots of other things I am sure.

I first stumbled across Ruhlman when I returned from two years in Chile working for the Peace Corps. I was riding a train in California from San Francisco to Fresno to visit a fellow returned volunteer. I was in a place in my life where I had no idea what I wanted to do or be or how I was going to feel fulfilled. My new found love of cooking inspired me to pick up Michael Ruhlman’s second book, “The Making of a Chef”, from a kiosk in the train station. I devoured the book and determined I didn’t want to be a chef. I had three reasons that being a chef was not for me: 1. too hard a job for too little money, 2. turning something that I loved into a job and 3. going back to school or starting as an apprentice in a kitchen sounded horrible, especially since I had a large amount of student loans to pay off!

Flash forward 16 years and here I am still interested in cooking, learning and now, sharing my adventures in the kitchen. I figure there are twenty chapters with numerous recipes using the twenty techniques. Therefore, realistically, it should take me 18 months to work my way through the book. I have already determined that some of the recipes do not appeal to me so I will not bother making them. I did get the idea of posting my learning experiences from Julie Powell’s “Julie and Julia” but I do not feel compelled to make anything I do not want to eat or doesn’t interest me. My cooking time is limited and this blog uses up my personal discretionary time, which fluctuates from an hour or more a day to fifteen minutes before I pass out from a long day of being a mom and wife. Therefore, I want to make the most of it!

We will see how it goes. Patience and perseverance are the two major skills I have learned from my life starting for real in graduate school to life abroad in Chile and continuing to my present day mommy-hood of three boys.

Also, I have the luck of not being on a schedule. I want and need to cook daily for my family which helps fuel my desire to learn new techniques and become smoother, quicker and more accomplished in the kitchen. I hope my posts will inspire you to give some of these new techniques a try too.  Let the learning and the fun begin!