Michael Ruhlman - Ratio (Simon & Schuster)

As the culinary world fills up with overly complicated recipes and never-ending ingredient lists, Michael Ruhlman blasts through the surplus of information and delivers an innovative and straightforward book that cuts to the core of cooking.

Instead of spending time wading through the millions of recipes available in books, magazines, and on the Internet, just remember 1-2-3. That's the ratio for cookie dough: 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour.

Biscuit dough is 3:2:1 or 3 parts flour, 2 parts liquid, 1 part fat. Change the ratio and bread dough becomes pasta dough, cake becomes muffins, and popovers become crepes. Vinaigrette is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meat to lettuces intense flavor.

Distilling dishes to their essence-using a few simple techniques and even fewer ingredients-is what every professional or home cook needs to know. Broken down into thirty-three ratios and suggestions for enticing variations, preparing food goes from craft to art...all without a recipe.Providing one of the greatest kitchen lessons there is, Ratio gives readers a starting point from which a thousand variations begin-making cooking easier and more satisfying than ever.