Rating  - friends marvel
I got this book 2 yrs ago My friends still talk about some of the food they have had
Rating - For browsing and cooking
For me, cookbooks have two functions. The first is to act as a spur to the imagination. A properly provocative cookbook would be one you could browse through with the same pleasure that you might take in reading an adventure novel. You get to have the excitement without the danger (or the calories). As an added benefit, you increase the store of ideas from which you put together your own cooking. Seen in this light, a book that offers
you recipes that you might never make or suggests ingredients that you could never find is doing you a favor: it is developing your imagination. Maybe I don't have Chinese five-spice powder or galangal, but I wonder how that recipe would work with dried ginger or a cinnamon, salt and fennel mixture.
The other function, of course, is to provide the cook with recipes and information on the craft of cooking. There are certain constraints on the cook's imagination and some experiments not worth pursuing. A good cookbook tells you what works and what doesn't.
As a bonus, sometimes a cookbook is just plain fun-to-read.
As a writer of wine books, I try to spur the imagination, suggest the limits and come up with a good read. Let's see how Raichlen's The Barbecue! Bible measures up.
First, there's the matter of the title. No, I don't mean the annoying exclamation point. I mean the suggestion that this might be a book about the slow-cooked barbecue of meltingly tender pork ribs and chicken thighs. It ain't. But in America these days, we understand barbecue to mean the food and techniques of cooking outdoors on a grill. Quibble dismissed.
Next, the range of recipes is impressive. No matter how much or how often you grill, there are bound to be dozens of items and ideas in this book that you never thought of. How about rum barbecue sauce, grilled pineapple, shallot relish, or grilled Yorkshire pudding?
In terms of technique, you can't do better. There are a few simple things to be learned: direct and indirect methods, the uses of smoke-wood and otherwise-the matter of marinade and rubs and the questions of timing. Raichlen covers them all in a breezy, journalist's way that tells you what you absolutely need to know.
Naturally, I was disappointed that in the drinks section he fails to mention the best accompaniment ever devised for grilled foods: rich red wine with a nice smack of tannin. That aside, an excellent book and the only one on grilling that most of us will ever need.
Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine and the novel bang-BANG forthcoming from Kunati Press.
Rating - Barbec ue with Steve Raichlen
This book provides an in depth process for barbecuing in the great outdoors. Steve Raichlen gives you the how to's and a history of barbecuing throughout the world. He uses a classic presentation to discuss the many fine receipes. He also goes into a brief summary of the history of each of the fine dishes. I would highly recommend this book
Rating  - Not quite what I was looking for
I was looking for a book about BBQ and grilling. What I got was a book of recipes. Not all that bad of a thing, but was looking for more wisdom from the apparent king of BBQ. While gas grilling is pretty straight forward for most cooks, I recently purchased a charcoal smoker/grill and sought info on this whole new area of backyard cuisine.
The first few sections had some great info on equipment and techniques. I also found some great info on rubs, marinates/brines and sauces. Odds are these few pages will be what I'll use pull most from the book. I'll certainly check out the recipies too -- some do look pretty good.
Perhaps those opening pages are all you need to get started, but with most areas of cooking, basic theory can be expanded into volumes of knowledge. I thought that this was the title that make Raichlen famous, but perhaps it was PBS. I've since ordered his How to Grill, which may be more of what I'm looking for.
Beyond what I said here, I would also suggest looking at Cook's Illustrated and Joy of Cooking for more info on technique and equipment.
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Customer Reviews for Workman Publishing Company,1563058669,019628038661,9781563058660,1563058669,641.5784 |
