Nothing in life is more fun and fulfilling than sharing a homemade meal with friends and family. The commercial food industry bombards us with messages to the contrary, desperately wanting to convince us that cooking is drudgery, that time at a dinner table keeps us away from important things (like their TV commercials), and that pleasure in eating relates only to stuffing your face with gargantuan portions of chow. Refusing to acquiesce to this nonsense, we celebrate in these pages the joys of cooking good food, entertaining good friends, and sharing a good meal over hours of conversation and laughter. Doing it all outdoors, under the stars, just makes it even more special.
Both of us remember seminal experiences from our childhoods with outdoor cooking, our dads firing up spindly three-legged grills for burgers, the campfires and cookstoves of childhood camping trips, our first midwestern community fish fry, the first bite of a saucy Kansas City rib. For Cheryl, there was a pulled pork and coleslaw sandwich devoured on a steamy Georgia afternoon. For Bill, the sliced brisket offered by an old grizzled pitmaster in a Dallas hole-in-the-wall with a sawdust floor. All were remarkable, partly because they were shared.
Our warm thanks to a trio of wise women (that’s different from wise guys) who have helped to make our professional life a personal joy. Editor Harriet Bell, agent Doe Coover, and spokesperson/rep Deborah Durham, you’re simply the best Our gratitude goes out to each of you for letting us focus on the food. We always look forward to our next meal with you.
We appreciate our close circle of generous and ever-supportive friends who inspire us, join us at our home, cook for us when we need a break, even let us mess up their outdoor kitchens. Thanks to Charlie Allenson, Raren Berlanti, Cheryl Burlett and Tom Lamberth, Andy Clurfeld, Rob and Mary Coffland, Dave and Susan Curtis, Barbara and Terry Fenzl, Susie and Gayther Gonzales, Summer and Tobias Kircher, Katherine Loo and the late Dusty Loo, Deborah Madison, the late Michael McLaughlin, John and Linda Nelson, Shirley Pisacane, Ed and Ellen Reid, Barbara and Bill Richardson, Daniel and Elizabeth Rocha, Sanya Schick, Nancy and Bob Schwan, Judy and Buz Sellers, Kak Slick, Lois Stouffer, Lenore Tapia, Barbara and Bill Templeman, Tracy and Steve Turi, Jim and Cindy Turner, BJ and Bumble Bee Bob Weil, and Laura Werlin. We don’t share quite as many meals with Diana Clark and Diane Dotts, because they help us stay worry-free when we’re on the road. We think of all these folks as extended family, and anytime we eat together, it’s a celebration filled with laughter, love, and some really bad jokes.
Our family members Heather and JB Neale and Myrna and John Richard checked out selected recipes at sea level to help level out any concerns about cooking times and circumstances created by our high-altitude living. Julie and Scott McCracken let us fry turkeys on their southern California lawn one winter. Grandkids Riley, Bronwyn, and Chloe Neale, nephews Kyle and Erik Nelson, Brock Richard, and Braxton Jamison, and nieces Krista Jamison, Lauren McCracken, and Karen Nelson helped devour the test results.
This book is a culmination of about a dozen years of research, and we’ve had the privilege of talking pyro-techniques with many pros during that time. For dealing with our pesky questions and obsessive desire for answers, we’d like to give a special tip of the gimme cap to Donna Myers, the barbecue industry’s best friend and hardest-working advocate, and to author Harold McGee, the only person more curious than us about all forms of cooking with fire. Arch and Shirley Corriher weighed in with helpful scientific advice as well. Dante Cantal of Twin Eagles understands more about designing equipment for outdoor cooking than a thousand other engineers combined. Rett Rasmussen from Solaire can explain the workings of infrared so that a five-year-old, or even the two of us, can understand it. Gina Knox of Sautee Cedar got us fired up about plank cooking. David Witt introduced us to some products that make grilling truly easier. Bruce Shaw and Dan Rosenberg gave us our early chances to write about this field.
The barbecue circuit’s “Chicken Champ,” Obie Obermark, continues to inspire our chicken cooking. The late Jim Quessenberry, a larger-than-life BBQ title holder, coached us on everything about smokin’ pig, even discoursing knowledgeably about whether hogs could fly. The pitmasters at Kreuz’s, Cooper’s, and other joints in Texas educated us about barbecued brisket, and then the ever-generous Wayne Whitworth taught us how to make it ourselves, personally hauling a pit a thousand miles to be sure we did it right. We learned about barbecued ribs from the likes of Ollie Gates and Mike Mills. The merry band of barbecue fanatics from the Kansas City Barbeque Society-folks like Paul Kirk, Karen Adler, and Carolyn Wells-schooled us as much in the enjoyment of outdoor cooking as in the techniques.
We’ve had a few epiphanies about frying fish and shellfish, one at the behest of Hoppin’ John Taylor at the table of Doris Cook and Zelma Hickman, who have since retired and closed their Edisto Motel Café along the South Carolina coast, and the other at a Mississippi catfish fry by the Scott family, organized by John T. Edge and the Southern Foodways Alliance. We bugged Mike Buich for most of a day picking up pointers for grilling fragile fish like sole at his family’s Tadich Grill in San Francisco. The magnificent crab cakes fried by the third-generation owners of Faidley’s in Baltimore sent us back to rework our whole notion of what the dish could be. The Guido family of the eponymous Galveston restaurant gave us pointers on Gulf seafood preparations. Chef-restaurateurs Chris Galvin, Chris Schlesinger, Stephan Pyles, Mark Miller, Rick Bayless, Sam Hayward, Tom Douglas, Sam Choy, and Bobby Flay have kindly laid down their tongs and spatulas to give us their views on firing up or taming the flames.
It is our great fortune to work locally with Art Pacheco, who has brought honor to the butcher’s art for more than four decades. His family’s name is synonymous with fine meat in northern New Mexico. Art and his gang of meatcutters at Kaune’s, along with Grace Graham and Seva Dubuar, have supplied and tutored us on just about anything with hoof, feather, or fin. Santa Fe Farmers’ Market farmers and growers have provided us a wealth of produce, cheese and other dairy products, lamb, chicken, bison, pork, and eggs that made testing recipes a delight. We salute two other women connected to the independent grocery business, Cheryl Pick Sommer and Jill Markstein–the food world is a better place for their integrity and enthusiasm.
Wendely Harvey and Robert Cave-Rogers give us the opportunity to work day after day in a kitchen far from home with ingredients that look, taste, and perform differently. Vive la France and vive la différence! Newer friends and colleagues Bill Ackerman and Delores Lan shared their table and recipes, as did chef James Campbell Caruso and chef-restaurateurs Blake Spalding and Jennifer Castle.
The William Morrow team, past and present, gets us into print and looking great We appreciate the efforts of everyone on staff, especially Lucy Baker, Carrie Bachman, Kate Hanzalick, Milena Perez, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, Chris Benton, Jenny Leff, and Ken Berger.
We’ve had the pleasure of cooking on and with dozens of brands and styles of outdoor cookers, and we’ve learned about many more at the annual Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Industry Association trade show. We tested our recipes predominantly on Ducane Meridian and Viking gas grills, a Solaire infrared grill, Hasty-Bake and Weber charcoal grills, in an outdoor wood burning fireplace, on smokers from Pitt’s and Spitt’s, The Big Green Egg, Cookshack, and Cameron, and in a fry and boil pot from Masterbuilt.
Our gratitude also goes out to all of you folks who share the passion for outdoor cooking with us. A big thank-Q. Share a fired-up meal with someone you care about tonight.