Christopher Schlesinger

I LOVE grilled food (except for the grilled dog I won't tell you about) and have never understood why people muck around with marinades and other stuff that waste time and hide flavor. This is the grill book for me. A rub for a nice crust, grill quickly, eat with a thrilling sauce.

The book follows the Master Recipe plus variation format. Instructions are easy to follow. Ingredients are generally not hard to find.

This is an excellent gift book for novice grill chefs and for people who did show more not grow up with a family grill tradition.

Nitpicky note: The authors take a confusing botanical shortcut when they describe Sichuan pepper, a Zanthoxylum, as a member of the citrus family. Sichuan pepper is not a citrus. Citrus and Zanthoxylum are different genera in the Rutaceae plant family. And Sichuan pepper is not pink. Fresh it is bright green, drying to very dark brown. There are two forms used in Lao cooking: Mak khan and mak mai. Muk mai, the smaller, is much more pungent and lemony and is especially exciting when you can get it fresh in early November.

I received an advance review copy of THE BIG-FLAVOR GRILL by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby (Ten Speed Press) through NetGalley.com. show less

I live by this book's grilled corn recipe. In general, this book's recipes are a little involved but really pack in strong flavors.

Some inspired recipes with unusual ingredients and flavors. I wish there were fewer pretty pictures and more recipes!

We picked this cook book up on Monday evening, April 21st at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge, MA, where the author, Chris Schlesinger, is the owner/chef. The cookbook has some intriguing recipes. The menu items on 4/21 could all be found in GRILL IT. I can't wait to try them. I hope I am as successful as the cooks were that night. Everything was grilled, and all of it was awesome!
We had Moroccan style grilled sea scallops (p. 127) and a grilled peel & eat shrimp with old bay, basil and show more lemon as appetizers, followed by (p. 118) pepper crusted grilled swordfish with smoked salmon chive butter (p. 102) and super hot jerk pork shoulder with spiced pineapple chutney. (p. 182). The chutney was wonderful. The sword fish was beyond wonderful. I wasn't willing to share. It was so perfect, that's all I can say about it. it was indescribably perfect!
A side order of grill bread (page 270) was shared and dissappeared rapidly. Dessert was a piece of Grilled banana upside-down cake (p.322) topped with unsweetened whipped cream. It too was just perfect!
It's amazing what they can make on a grill. This cookbook is educational from the point of view of grilling, and as a source of information about international cuisine as well. The photos are mouth watering. Each section includes Flavor Footprints, i.e., information about various spices & herbs used in some of the worlds most flavorful cuisines: Mexican - Latin, South-east Asia, India, West Indies - Carribean, China, & Eastern Mediterranean - North Africa.
If you are a fan of spicy food, this cookbook will interest you - more to the point, watch the website for the East Coast Grill. Several times each year they hold a 3 night series of Hell Nights - evenings when the menu items are spicy hot and the strength of that heat is measured by the number of little bomb symbols next to the name of the dish. Hell Nights are famous for the Pasta from Hell. That recipe can be found on the internet at http://www.starchefs.com/chefs/CSchlesinger/html/recipe_08.shtml show less