Co-author of books with top chefs such as Thomas Keller and Eric Ripert, Ruhlman makes it clear he is going for the ambitious home cook, someone for whom the kitchen is as much a hobbyist's workshop as it is a place of necessity.

The whole premise is that by isolating 20 essential building blocks of cooking, and taking the time to learn about each one, anyone can become a better cook.

He succeeds to a remarkable extent. There is so much good information in "Twenty."

It's clearly the product of years of cooking and thinking about cooking. In fact, the very first building block is titled "Think".

It's the kind of book I can see culinary acolytes taking to bed to read and reread, each time gleaning more information.

For example, the second chapter is exclusively on salting. From the kind of salt to use to the effect of salt on meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. It's an authoritative essay on an aspect of cooking that most recipes wrap up with "season to taste."

Other building blocks include water, onions and acid. Clearly, this level of detail is not aimed at the cook who just wants to impress a date, made clear by Ruhlman's quasi-homestyle recipes given a chef-y twist.

Even simple mac 'n' cheese is bound with soubise--white sauce pureed with plenty of caramelized onions.

And he's not at all shy about calling for ingredients that may be challenging to find. His delicious-sounding winter vegetable garbure is simmered under an 8-inch sheet of bacon rind.

While it sounds amazing, acquiring that rind might be a challenge.

Recipes are not arranged in traditional soup-to-nuts fashion, but as they apply to the essays.

The salt chapter, for example, includes raw zucchini salad (salted to draw out moisture), brined pork chops, preserved lemons, homemade bacon, gravlax and a caramel sundae with extra-coarse salt.

As it happens, when it comes to food lovers just learning to cook, I have a test case of my own at home. No, she didn't just graduate from high school or college, or move out on her own, but my wife just retired from her job. And now, after 30 years of never making much more than breakfast granola and the occasional cheese quesadilla, she's decided to start fixing dinner every now and then.

I gave her a copy of "How to Boil Water" and told her to go crazy. When I got home that night, she'd made chicken with dates and green olives ("Date Night Chicken" in the book), and couscous with carrots and raisins.

She then propped the dishes up on the counter, snapped pictures with her iPhone and sent them to friends.

Next thing you know, she'll be starting a blog.