Pure BBQ by Steffan Eichhorn

My rating: 2 of 5 spoons
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I love to barbecue and/or grill out during the summer, so I was very excited to get this book. The cover is beautiful, and just made me want to dive in all the more. It starts with selecting your meat. I'm not talking what cuts you want, or is it organic or not--it literally starts with "The Biological Prerequisites" and then moves on to "Fodder", "Butchering Age", "Maturing" "Origin" and "Breeding". Wow! I simply wanted a good bbq book! There's a decent little 3 page section on bbq preparation--direct grilling, indirect grilling and smoking--and then it's on to the recipes. I started to perk back up right about now.  Unfortunately, it was still a disappointment.

The recipe pages are done in a "artful" way which does nothing for ease of reading the recipes. Ingredients over a busy photo background, preparation in circles around the page. Right about now I'm thinking they should have remembered the golden rule--Keep It Simple! Instead of double spread pages with very little writing, more of the book could have been used for recipes. I kid you not, there are exactly TWO recipes for Poultry!! There are nine beef recipes, seven pork, five lamb, two poultry, five fish and shellfish, six sides and five rubs, glazes and marinades. Many of those I will never use whether it just doesn't appeal to me or lack of sources for ingredients.

Final thoughts: this is a beautiful book, but not a useful book for me. Many people may love it, but I will probably never use it.

I received this book from Schiffer Publishing for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.