I haven't posted a book review in a long time and I'm finally sitting down to write one. This months free book from blogging for books is a cook book called Around the Fire. Its written by Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quinones Denton with Stacy Adimando. Greg and Gabrielle have a restaurant in Portland called "Ox Restaurant" This cook book is filled from cover to cover with some of their most mouth watering dishes served there.
The front cover is adorned with a fire pit and inviting flames. The warmth it emits draws you in and you cant help but run your hand over the front of the book. Each page is a soft paper material, not the silky typical book page of a cook book.
The table of contents is what draws you into the beginning of the book. Its laid out in parts, equaling 4 parts.
Part 1 is the beginning, filled with delicious entrées such as spiced beef empanadas, coal roasted oysters on the half-shell, grilled foie gras with caramelized onion sherry broth, savory cabbage and gruyere toasts. (My mouth is watering just typing that out!)
Part 2 (from the grill) is filled with Veal chops with chanterelle Mushroom Stroganoff, Grilled Maple-Brined Pork Chops, Grilled Lamb Shoulder Chops with a Rosemary Marinade, Grilled Butterflied whole Chicken with grilled figs, manouri cheese and lentil chimichurri. Are you frothing at the mouth yet?
Part 3 (from the garden) Has my mouth watering with kale and radicchio salad with Miso-Lemon Dressing, Feta and Crispy Red Onion rings, Heirloom Tomatoes with shaved sweet onion, capers, bottarga and Cress, Grilled Radicchio and Corn with Mt Tam Triple creams and Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette. Garden deliciousness is by far my most favorite!
Part 4 (sweets and drinks) will have you reaching for your dessert plate with delectable entrees such as Strawberry-Cherry Sorbet with chocolate magic Shell and Crushed Pistachios, Vanilla bean tres leches cake with marionberry ice cream, warm parmesan pund cake with whipped mascarpone, raspberries, and basil sugar. I am officially ready for some dessert!
After the Contents page there is a great Coauthors note from Stacy Adimando. I cant even begin to put into words the sweetness that emits from the words she chose to put in this note. Here is a little snippet "Don't get me wrong: I have nothing but love for you, non-meat-eating friend I speak of. But surely, I though, the fire-coked rib-eye and the onion-marinated skirt steak and the list of other grilled meats that ran down the center of this restaurant's menu must be the best dishes they offer. In this age of share-everything dining, I silently panicked." She goes on to talk about how she discovered the restaurant Ox and her fondness for everything it entailed.
Grilling Basics literally cover everything needed to grill any type of food. They start off with the style of the grill, types of fuel (yes there are more than one type of fuel to build a wood fire with), the essential grilling tools (there wont be a test but some of them are really essential, such as the chimney starter) and finish off with how to turn your grill into a smoker. Yes there are a few steps inbetween but I cant give everything away!
Every single recipe gives you an exact ingredient list and how much of each item will be needed to prepare the meal. Along with the ingredient list there are step by step instructions on exactly how to prepare the dish so that it comes out to perfection. My personal favorite part of each recipe are the photos that come with each one. I don't know about you but I want to know what my finished product is suppose to look like. It's an added bonus that each one of these photos are creatively taken to
make your mouth water.
There are over 200 pages of delicious recipes of all varieties to meet every single one of our grilling needs, wants and desires. After all of these there is a short section titled "basic recipes" that add the perfect touch to this book. There is everything from homemade ketchup, homemade mayonnaise, smoked sea salt to toasted garlic-lemon oil and grandma Agnes's spicy dill pickles. What an amazing cook book to include recipes for the basic ingredients so you can freshly make them instead of purchasing them from the store! That alone gets my vote of approval!
I have nothing but amazing things to say about every page of this book from the inviting front cover, to the pages filled with the most amazing food ive ever seen to the back cover of the book that so sweetly has a quote from Francis Mallmann. If you have a chance to purchase this book, do it! you will not be sorry and it will be money well spent!
Happy grilling :)
