Writer Michael Ruhlman - Photo by: D.T. Ruhlman

If the writer thing didn’t work out, Michael Ruhlman could have always opened a restaurant. On the afternoon I interviewed the writer and James Beard Award winner, he cooked a lunch of sweet cured confit pork belly which we ate on crusty French bread with Dijon mustard and a few glasses of Pinot Noir. It was exceptional. Thankfully, his food writing is even better.

Ruhlman penned The Making of a Chef, a behind the scenes look at what it takes to make it at the Culinary Institute of Arts, and The Soul of a Chef, a profile of top chefs including Thomas Keller of the French Laundry in Napa Valley.

His new book, coming out in May, The Reach of a Chef , examines Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago, Masa Takayama of Masa in New York City, and topics like Food Network’s impact on the culinary world.

Ruhlman also coauthored the French Laundry Cookbook, Bouchon, and Charcuterie:The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing.

In this podcast we talk about, the impact of chef driven cuisine, whether chefs are artists, food personalities like Anthony Bourdain and Chef Thomas Keller, and charcuterie.

If you have Macromedia Flash installed, you can play the file right on this site, below, by pressing the play button. If not, download the file and play it on your PC or on an MP3 player here: Michael Ruhlman Interview