5 comments about Raichlen on Ribs, Ribs, Outrageous Ribs.

1. I like Steven,s other books better. i was looking more for pork rib recipes



2. I got this book last summer and have used it many times - there's alot of basic info on ribs to understand how to cook various types of ribs to get the best results in each case. The first recipe in the book for basic ribs is winner - I make it all the time in the summer, adjusting it here and there to get different flavors. He really knows alot about the grill, so that information is worth the price of the book alone. If you love ribs, buying this book is a no brainer.



3. Bought this for my husband. He thought he knew everything thing there was to know about ribs, until he read this book. Very good. Highy recommend it to all rib enthusiasts.



4. I have owned a grill for may years, but never really enjoyed grilling because it never turned out that great. I would just throw meat on the grill and then I guess just hope for the best. That changed when I got this book for Christmas. I was so excited about the guidance that this book provided me with, I was grilling ribs on my back deck three weeks later, in 15 degree weather. They turned out to be the best ribs I ever made, maybe even ever tasted. I have made several other recipes from the book since then, and they were spectacular. I am determined to try them all. Also, I have bought two more of Steven Raichlen's books, Beer can Chicken and the Barbecue Bible, which have proven to be invaluable as well.



5. If Ribs is your game or if you are looking for a good reference book to help you begin your journey down Rib lane, then this is the book for you! Easy to read, great recipes, and loads of helpful hints, tips and suggestions on meats, sauces, grills...the list goes on.
   
   So help yourself out and pick up a copy today! Your lips will thank you!

5 comments about Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook: Explosive Flavors from the Southwestern Kitchen.

1. As usual Bobby presents each recipe in an easy to understand format. I think the greatest testament to his ability is to create food that has such great flavor from a simple list of indgredients. The veal chop with the ancho-maple-horseradish glaze is a gift from heaven. His ancho maple glazed turkey was a smash this thanksgiving. There are too many great recipes from this book to mention. He continually provides great recipes with each book and I look forward to owning his next installment. His food is quick and easy to prepare. I think that everyone should own several Flay cookbooks and use them regularly. Many of his recipes are staples in my house and they will easily become those in your house as well.



2. This is one of my new favorites. The results have been extremely good. Some recipes are relatively fast to make while the super tasty duck taco recipe involves making 3 different sauces. However, once some of the sauces are made, they can be frozen and used in other recipes shortening the cooking time. Some of the green sauces work really well on salads. The ingredients are authentic and readily available in my home town of Houston. The use of blue cornmeal in pancakes give a great text and flavor boost along with visual appeal. The green pea soup green chile soup is excellent, but it appears that the mint-cumin crema calls for way too much cumin, especially compared to other version of the cumin crema in the book. Although some recipes take some effort, the results are worth and will impress your dinner guests. I'm working my way through the various recipes.



3. I purchased this book after I had a chance to experience dinner at Mesa Grill, I have prepared several items from the book and they taste great, very easy to follow directions, I look forward to all the other things in the book, I highly reccommend this book to anyone that is a fan of Bobby Flay or if you just like southwestern style food.



4. I watched Bobby Flay's biography on television and his cooking seemed so interesting I thought I would purchase one of his books and and give it a try.
   
   First, the recipes are easy to follow - though several steps are required during preparation the end result is well worth the effort. The results are fantastic. Before viewing his biography my mind set was that most of the food would be too spicy. Not so. The recipes include some heat but it seems the heat is nicely complimented with sweet and citrus flavors. The combination is indescribable. The prickly pear margarita is especially delicious and so are the salads.
   
   If you are looking to create unforgettable dishes with lots of fresh flavor this is the book to use.



5. I am a big Bobby Flay fan and I absolutely love this cookbook! I would have given it 5 stars but do to having to order special spices, that are not available anywhere near me, I could only give it 4. I find almost all of his recipes pretty simple and soooo delicious!

5 comments about Weber's Big Book of Grilling.

1. Here we have one of those rare culinary volumes which is actually helpful, and inside, you'll discover a treasure of grilling knowledge. Clearly, this is the bible for outdoor chefs.
   
   I sort of specialize in gourmet outdoor cooking effecting all techniques including (but not limited to) grilling, smoking, dutch oven, cooking on a spit, and open campfire, utilizing many different woods and devices to achieve my ends. I don't limit my outdoor cooking to meats and barbeque -- I do Chinese, desserts, seafood and all manner of side dishes. You can access many of my recipes here: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes.php?chef=196369
   
   This book contains very excellent rubs, sauces, and meal recipes that you'll find are difficult to beat -- the methods are quite clear and the book is as useful for the grilling veteran as it is for the newcomer to these skills. I know of no better work on this topic.
   
   Highly recommended!



2. I received this book as a gift,all have benefited! We've tried about half of the recipes, each is easy to follow with simple ingredients, and delicious.



3. Fantastic book with lots of great grill instructions and recipies. Wished that every recipie had a picture but it does'nt.



4. Excellent book on grilling, I wanted a book on Charcoal but found this book full of good information that can be used by both gas and woodl



5. I have to bow down to this book as the best grilling book EVER. We've tried many of the recipes and never been disappointed. Plus, it's entertaining to read with great pictures. Can't ask for much more than that.

5 comments about Weber's Real Grilling (Weber's).

1. This is an awesome recipe book. Every recipe has a color photo, with excellent instructions. Every recipe we have tried is as mouth watering as it looks! I used to let my husband do all the grilling, but now I am hooked. There are great tips on how to grill just about everything.



2. This is the best cookbook i have ever used. Many of the recipes are easy to follow but it is also a grill exclusive cookbook. Now you may be thinking - so you can make chicken or steak - great cookbook right? Wrong, you can cook vegetables, starches and desserts in addition to every meat under the sun. Every recipe has a beautiful picture - the drawback is you are competing to make yours look that good and it makes you hungry to make everything in it. Overall an incredible buy.



3. Very informative, haven't had a bad meal yet. Price of book was very good compared to retail and shipping was reasonable.



4. Great book which weighs too much because the publisher chose very expensive HEAVY paper which makes it hard to hold and the pages must be forced down to read the recipe. Better done with a spiral binder and lighter weight paper.



5. We love this cookbook. We have tried at leat 15 recipes and have been pleasantly surprised by all. We have never had such a wonderful and reliable cookbook.

5 comments about Barbecue! Bible : Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes.

1. What a great book have made a couple of the rubs and they worked out very good but one will have to be diluted as wow it is hot. Can't wait till the Summer when the barbecue will be out and I can try some more recipes.
   Well written and easy to follow.



2. I bought two of these as Christmas gifts for my son-in-laws. Each of them were thrilled with the gift and after looking through the book thought it really had all they were looking for in a "great grilling cookbook" with lots of basic recipes as well as fun andexciting recipes to try too.
   A VERY "MACHO" GIFT THAT WENT OVER WELL!



3. Do NOT hesitate to purchase this gem. There are dry rubs, wet rubs, sauces, marinades. All very original and can go with so many types of meats! Great book, hands down.



4. There many recipes from all over the world not all original but many borrowed from other BBQ places. Find many good ones for brisket, pork, chicken , beef , ribs, fish , seafood , veggies and more. I like that there are frequently extra notes about each recipe concerning the author of the recipes and other stuff.While there is no rating scale (easy, difficult , medium, nany of the recipes are not difficult to make. Some have quite a few ingredients. Basic thai sate marinage is very good (9.6/10); balsamic drizzle (9.6/10) . I am still trying out more



5. I purchased this for both my father and my stepfather. Both have tried recipes from it already and were excited to be doing something new. My stepfather had been looking for the book on his own, I didn't know he was doing so, but he said that it was recommended by a friend who is an excellent griller! Lots of great recipes and techniques.

5 comments about Smoke & Spice: Cooking with Smoke, the Real Way to Barbecue.

1. We have been using this for years and we use some of the recipes in our catering business. I give this as a gift to any friend that purchases a smoker. Wild Willy's Wonderful Rub is the BEST!
   
   This is a must have for anyone that enjoys exceptional bar-b-que and sides.



2. Try the "Mister Brown" and serve with the yellow mustard sauce. It will make you famous.



3. This is a nice fattish book that provides plenty of recipes. The book doesn't pretend to be "gourmet" but rather provides exactly what the cover suggests: Good ol' American BBQ.
   
   Recommended as a first book for anyone that wants to try their hand at smoking/slow [charcoal] cooking/grilling. The instructions and text are good and clear throughout. I hesitated to give the book 5 stars but decided that I reserve the 5 star ratings for truly exceptional books. In this case for instance, one thing I would have liked to see are more pictures/photos....



4. This book was recommended by a friend who caters pig roasts professionally and it is everything he said - full of great recipes. Whether you want ribs or pulled pork, brisket or sides, this cookbook has it all.



5. Fantastic book with great recipes. Covers the basics and gets into some more challenging things as well. Smoking takes a little longer - low and slow - but makes for wonderful, tender meat - you can even smoke burgers. There is a section in the front that discusses different types of smokers and the theory behind it. I read about this book on some smoking websites and agree - it's fantastic.

5 comments about The Barbecue! Bible.

1. The Barbecue Bible website promotes this as the illustrated version of the original. I really liked the original; I think the author is great and have many of his books. I had purchased the original many years ago, and was willing to pay for it again upon the premise of seeing a picture of the recipes prepared.
   While there is new text with interesting information, there aren't that many recipes that are illustrated. This was a huge letdown; I was very interested in seeing pictures of completed recipes I had tried.
   If you haven't purchased this, I don't think you will be disappointed, as it really is an amazing cookbook; it really teaches you a lot about the world's flavors. If you have already purchased it, and are like me, anticipating pictures of prepared dishes, you will be disappointed. How to Grill is lavishly illustrated and will probably be a better investment if you are visually oriented. To summarize, Stephen is a very impressive author and very interesting to read for the first time; I wish it was illustrated more extensively.



2. This book was recommended by Epicurious before it was published, so I was excited to see it when it came out. I popped on amazon to buy it, read some reviews (negative) and decided to pass. Several people complained that the recipes were complicated and required lots of specialty ingredients. When I saw the book at my local warehouse club I gave it a look. I was very impressed and snapped it right up!
   
   I'm the type who reads cookbooks like novels, and I am an experienced cook who likes to dabble in every sort of cuisine imaginable. I'm also a condiment/seasonings/spices nut, so I have an extremely well-stocked pantry. That said, in reading through the book, I didn't come across any recipes for which I didn't have the ingredients. I realize, however, that the average person does not have tamarind paste or sambal olek in their fridge, nor galangal or scores of middle eastern seasonings in the pantry. But, if I can find that stuff at my local markets (the Super Target, for goodness sake!), surely these ingredients are easily obtained. And there are plenty of recipes in this book that do not require "exotic" ingredients, if your tastes or budget doesn't run to that.
   
   The book is very broad in its scope - cocktails, salads, meats, veggies, sides, even desserts - so it is far more useful than simply a book on grilling meats. I also appreciated the explanations of techniques, histories of cuisines, definitions of terms, etc. This type of information not only equips one to execute the recipes in the book well, but experiment and develop dishes on one's own. There is also an extensive section on rubs, marinades and sauces for just such experimenting.
   
   I think this book would be enjoyed by the following types of cooks:
   
   -those enjoy trying new cuisines, new flavors and new techniques
   -those who want to expand their bbq/grilling repertoire
   -those who are adventurous cooks (and diners!) who either have a well-stocked pantry or would find other uses for some of the more unique ingredients (lots of Thai, Asian and middle-eastern ingredients)
   -those who appreciate a cookbook that provides an entire meal's recipes, not just the entree.
   
   If you like your food pretty plain or you're cooking for picky eaters who won't try anything they haven't heard of, this book is soooo not for you. Bob appetit!



3. Where this book fails immediately is that Barbecue is not about the sauce it's about the meat. I know, I design sauces and own a BBQ Sauce Company. I'm always looking for good BBQ cookbooks. The author gives no information on preparation of meat or cooking it. He spent 13 pages on how to light different grills and I wasn't impressed much with that. I think the big headlines were used to waste space so that he could put out a big book. I could go on but here is one final thought. The book claims to be the Barbecue Bible, you'd expect it to cover the subject in every detail and with some degree of experience. This attempt at being the Barbecue Bible fails miserably. I bought the book online, if I saw the book in a book store and was able to go through it, I would not have bought it. Steven Raichlen is probably a food critic or cookbook editor, not a barbecue expert.



4. My husband picked this book up and we've had so much fun for the past 6 weekends or so trying out new things to put on the barbeque!
   Can't wait to try the next one now!
   It's worth every cent; I'm impressed with how closely authentic Steven's kept all the recipes!



5. The text part is great, but I was very disappointed that there are so few photos in the book. I would not have bought if I had known that.

5 comments about Bobby Flay's Grill It!.

1. My husband loves to watch Flay's boy meets grill and we have tried several recipes. This Grill Book is along those same lines. He got it for Father's Day and spent the next hour looking through the recipes of what he can make on the grill. There is a variety of dishes that have broad appeal and definitely more than 3-4 that we would make over and over again. I'm looking forward to some great cookouts this summer.



2. Bobby Flay's Grill It!
   This book is excellent and exciting to read! I like the way 'Grill-It' is organized - by food item. The recipes are easy with limited, but choice ingredients. This cookbook will motivate anyone to get out the grill and fire it up!!!



3. Since this product was purchased as a gift, in July, I have no review.
   Sorry about that. Norm



4. Bobby Flay's "Grill It!" is a nice cookbook for those of us who enjoy firing up our grills. Charcoal or gas grill? Flay accepts both and gives some hints about each. He notes at the outset that (Page vi): "Firing up the grill makes every night dinners with family or simple get-togethers with friends feel like a party or some sort of celebration." The early part of the book discusses fundamentals--direct versus indirect heat and when to use each, how to determine how hot the grill is, testing for doneness, needed gear to grill, what should be in your pantry and refrigerator. Finally, he emphasizes going to a local market/store, picking up what food seems freshest and most interesting, and going from there.
   
   But the heart of the book is the recipes. He divides these up into types of food--vegetables, chicken, beef, seafood, etc.
   
   At the outset, he discusses grilling veggies. I have tried one of these already--asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. Straightforward ingredients--asparagus, prosciutto, mint, parsley, garlic, etc. Grill the asparagus, after tossing it with oil and seasoning with salt and pepper. Grill until crisp-tender. Then wrap in prosciutto (8 or so stalks at a time) with the other blended ingredients. Yummy! A fine side dish for a meal.
   
   Beef? He begins with describing how to grill steak perfectly, the base recipe, so to speak. Then, he provides variations, such as creating sauces such as horseradish or balsamic-rosemary sauces. I spent my days in graduate school in Buffalo, New York, so I was especially intrigued by his "Spicy Buffalo style burger with celery-carrot slaw and blue cheese dressing." That is, he reinvents Buffalo chicken wings as a grilled burger. I haven't tried this yet, but I sure am interested in experimenting with this when I get the chance.
   
   In the section on chicken, he begins, once more, with a base recipe, "Perfectly grilled chicken breast." After this, a series of variations on the base recipe or other recipes entirely. What about "Apple-ginger glazed chicken"? "Sweet and sour grilled chicken"?
   
   And on it goes. Sections on grilling pork, corn, fruit, lamb, shrimp, scallops, tuna, and so on.
   
   As I can tell from the front material, Flay has written other grilling books. I don't know if any recipes are repeated here or not. But I can say that this set of recipes looks pretty tempting. And the few grilled dishes that I have tried thus far have not disappointed.



5. Outstanding book for the first time and experienced griller. Bobby is very creative and pushes the envelope when it comes to unique taste ingredients. Every backyard griller should add this book to their cooking library

5 comments about Italian Grill.

1. I am cooking my way through this book. So far everything I've made has turned out perfectly. Mario knows how to construct a recipie that lets the food shine through. Recommend this highly to everyone who wants a solid go-to reference to making excellent food.



2. I love this book! Some really delicious summer fare. Be sure to try the scallops recipe! Most recipes are fairly easy and interesting. My only complaint is that Mario uses some ingredients that are not in my cupboard, and some not even found in my rural area. Am looking forward to trying more recipes.



3. This cookbook has so much to offer! I gave it my father as a gift and every time I go home now he has something new to cook out of it and it gets more and more delicious ! I know the cookbook will satisfy even the beginner cook!



4. We saw this cookbook at a friends house and had to have a copy. Since we're living in our RV while we're constructing our house, the grill has become crucial. The recipes are interesting and well detailed. The stone cooking method (Piastra) has given me a whole new dimension with the grill. Also, this is the only cookbook that I've seen that gives a specific recipe for King Mackeral, which is readily available here. The photography is superb. We're very pleased with this purchase!



5. Easy but very tasty recipes. It's made my summer grilling a favorite with my friends.

5 comments about How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques.

1. This book is a must have for any serious griller. It has just about anything that you need to know about grilling.



2. "How to Grill" is more than just a fantastic cookbook. It is packed with information about grills, smokers, cooking tools, and other things of interest to those who want to know how to grill and smoke good food. As for the "recipe section," Raichlen gives great tips on technique, i.e., how to prepare the food for the grill, and to present it upon completion. He covers seasoning the food, sauces, rubs, and marinades. It is just a fantastic book for people of all levels of experience in grilling. It should be on every grillers book shelf.



3. Exciting, excellent, effective. If you like cooking, learning how to do things, or are just visual by nature (most people are) you will most certainly enjoy this one. I have perused all of this authors books and have enjoyed his commentary; this book takes the cake (and has a double layer of frosting on top). If the new version of the Barbecue Bible was illustrated even semi-close to this book Stephen would have another huge hit.



4. This a a great book for creative grill masters. One caveat: if you own an 18 inch weber kettle, be sure to adapt the coal amounts for your smaller grill. Otherwise you will fry your food faster than a hyper-active pyro. The author never bothers to mention how much fuel to use for various sizes of charcoal grills. Not once in the entire book. So, be carefull grill-jockeys and adjust down or up as needed. Otherwise, yum.



5. I bought this as a Father's Day gift, and my dad has grilled out every saturday since! The book kills two birds with one stone with its great cooking techniques and recipes. The pictures are great and very helpful, and the directions are very simple and easy to understand. The food tastes great! Some of the recipes take a good hour or two to prep though, so make sure to read through the whole procedure before starting.