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When you know a culinary ratio, it's not like knowing a single recipe, it's instantly knowing a thousand.

Why spend time sorting through the millions of cookie recipes available in books, magazines, and on the Internet? Isn't it easier just to remember 1-2-3? That's the ratio of ingredients that always make a basic, delicious cookie dough: 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour. From there, add anything you want--chocolate, lemon and orange zest, nuts, poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, almond extract, or peanut butter, to name a few favorite additions. Replace white sugar with brown for a darker, chewier cookie. Add baking powder and/or eggs for a lighter, airier texture.

Ratios are the starting point from which a thousand variations begin.

Ratios are the simple proportions of one ingredient to another. Biscuit dough is 3:1:2--or 3 parts flour, 1 part fat, and 2 parts liquid. This ratio is the beginning of many variations, and because the biscuit takes sweet and savory flavors with equal grace, you can top it with whipped cream and strawberries or sausage gravy. Vinaigrette is 3:1, or 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meats and fish to steamed vegetables or lettuces intense flavor.

Cooking with ratios will unchain you from recipes and set you free. With thirty-three ratios and suggestions for enticing variations, Ratio is the truth of cooking: basic preparations that teach us how the fundamental ingredients of the kitchen--water, flour, butter and oils, milk and cream, and eggs--work. Change the ratio and bread dough becomes pasta dough, cakes become muffins become popovers become crepes.

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 this innovative, straightforward book that cuts to the core of cooking. Ratio provides one of the greatest kitchen lessons there is--and it makes the cooking easier and more satisfying than ever.

Shortlisted for the 2020 Social Justice & Advocacy Book Award by In the Margins Book Awards.

In December 2008, twentysomething Jill Grunenwald graduated with her master's degree in library science, ready to start living her dream of becoming a librarian. But the economy had a different idea. As the Great Recession reared its ugly head, jobs were scarce. After some searching, however, Jill was lucky enough to snag one of the few librarian gigs left in her home state of Ohio. The catch? The job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men's minimum-security prison. Talk about baptism by fire.

As an untested twentysomething woman, to say that the job was out of Jill's comfort zone was an understatement. She was forced to adapt on the spot, speedily learning to take the metal detectors, hulking security guards, and colorful inmates in stride. Over the course of a little less than two years, Jill came to see past the bleak surroundings and the orange jumpsuits and recognize the humanity of the men stuck behind bars. They were just like every other library patron--persons who simply wanted to read, to be educated and entertained through the written word. By helping these inmates, Jill simultaneously began to recognize the humanity in everyone and to discover inner strength that she never knew she had.

At turns poignant and hilarious, Reading behind Bars is a perfect read for fans of Orange is the New Black and Shakespeare Saved My Life.

"My husband's dead!"

This was the last thing researcher Bill Task expected to hear during his nightly telephone interviewing sessions.

He never thought his attempt to help Mrs. Wall would drag him into a murder investigation with roots going back over fifty years. But did she really poison her husband? The police think so, andsuspicion soon falls on Bill as well.

His research skills and knowledge might not be enough to solve this murder. He must look beyond his sixty-plus hours per week of work and research his way through a secret stash of money, a stolen identity, a witness with autism, questioning and suspicion from the police, a bar owner with possible mafia ties, a felony from fifty years ago, and a possible killer on the loose. Bill's research takes him all over southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, all while he tries to keep serving his regular business clients. He must solve the case before Mrs. Wall goes to trial, and he must learn to trust again after years of shutting people out. Otherwise, he may not only lose his business, but also his life.