Ruhlman's Newsletter

Our extended road trip—which began mid-May in Ireland, continued on eto the Baltics, then back to Newport and Ann’s MFA program, found brief respite in NYC for the 4th, then continued on to Maine where Ann and I taught at Maine Media, followed by another week of Ann’s teaching in Truro, MA—OY!!!—it truly ends today as we at last return to NYC and some solid ground, hurkle-durkling on familiar pillows and cotton sheets, morning Peets, writing, movies and plays, the evening cocktail and...

I’ve written about this before but I wanted to give this recipe its standalone place on my Substack because it’s so good. I’m been making and devouring it for some 30 years, since my father created it, with the addition of the minced shallot by me. Also, Father’s Day came and went without a mention of my dear dad, Rip Ruhlman (1938-2008), about whom I fe…

The first Europeans to arrive in America, who didn’t know what the hell they were doing, learned this practie and this dish after arriving on these shores. They looked to the native Americans who had been living here for a while—like 20,000 years—and knew what they were doing.

To all, I wish you a happy summertime celebration. E pluribus unum—of many, one. Regardless of your political persuasion, whether you’re having a yee-haw shindig or an it-was-great-while-it-lasted blowout, the occasion of our nation’s semiquincentennial is indeed worthy of note and a time to appreciate some of the things that makes this country such a great place to live. Such as: The Federalist Papers, such as the Constitution, such as the Gettysburg Address.

How can we understand our place in the world if we don’t know the world? In 2017, shortly before my 54th birthday, I married a woman who traveled professionally for nearly a decade. Giving that life up in the turbulent times of deregulation and airline strikes in the mid-1980s, she left TWA to embark on a career as a writer.

The pork schnitzel at Džiaugsmas restaurant in Vilnius, Lithuania. Such a wondrous mix of foods we tasted as we traveled from Tallinn to Estonia to the fields of central Latvia, to Vilnius, Lithuania, and such a potpourri of Slavic cultures. All three countries have distinct characteristics and attitudes.

As I was planning for our month-long voyage through five countries, I received an email from one Trevis Gleason, a chef I’d met in Dingle three years earlier at the home of a mutual friend (he and I prepared the Dingle lamb there that trip). Last year we had a couple pints in the snug at Dick Mack’s. His email: Wondering if you and Ann are coming back to Dingle for the writing course again this spring. If ye’re free any night, we’d love to have you over for a simple dinner.

A rainbow over Dunfanaghy, northwestern tip of Ireland week before last. Ten years ago, on assignment for Saveur magazine, I wrote about Dingle, a town on a peninsula in southwestern Ireland. I covered its thriving food scene and also its emotional power. Where once the weekly menu consisted mainly of boiled beef and cabbage, followed the next by potatoes and cabbage, followed by bacon and cabbage, Ireland now seemed a land of culinary plenty.

My wife Ann, our Promiscuous Reader, does not love a turkey club. Rather it is her sandwich. It’s the default lunch order. And she wants it perfect. Meaning … well, she once ordered 3 club sandwiches at three different places in Minneapolis at a book festival, and not a single restaurant got it right. At the third restaurant, she clarified with the waiter: “Turkey club, yes? It will be cut in four triangles, held together with toothpicks?” “Absolutely, of course,” our server assured us.

Five variations, in memoriam, the rants of old, a summer cocktail, books and viewing recs! It is the season of chicken salad, one of the great deli mainstays and classic sandwiches (it’s Paul Simon’s favorite). Spring somehow lends itself to lunches, generally, with warming weather, graduations, wedding showers and so forth, and there may be no better course to prepare for a group of people than a great chicken salad.