A Father’s Day Gift Guide: Grilling Cookbooks

Mention the word “barbecue” and most guys rush to the grill in anticipation of manning the equipment and cooking their dishes to perfection. If the dad in your life is like many other North American dads, the grill is his domain. However, the traditional image of the steak-and-burgers-only barbecue is no more. Nowadays, the grill is more like an extension of the kitchen stove, with many cookbooks offering tasty recipes for just about everything, including appetizers, side dishes, mains, and desserts.

4 Grilling Books For Your Special Dad

When Only Burgers are Allowed: Burger Bar

It’s time to jazz up a guy’s “burgers-only” repertoire with this offering. Chef Hubert Keller shares his recipes from the Burger Bar restaurants in Las Vegas and St. Louis. There are 50 recipes of burgers made from the traditional beef, to lamb, bison, poultry, and fish, as well as some vegetarian burgers. We should note that the recipes are heavy on the beef, so it may be the perfect choice for a beef lover who is interested in diversifying into other kinds of protein sources without abandoning their roots.

Everything Can Be Grilled: Soaked, Slathered and Seasoned

If your dad throws anything edible on the grill, this is the perfect book for him. Author Elizabeth’s Karmel motto sums it up perfectly: “If you can eat it, you can grill it!” The book contains 400 recipes for soaking (marinating items before they go on the grill), slathering (sauces or glazes to brush on the foods in the final minutes of cooking), and seasoning (dips or sauces that accompany grilled items), as well as suggestions for what types of foods (veggies, fish, poultry, or meat) go well with which others. Think of it more as a guide to flavoring foods for the grill, that can be mixed and matched to make endless combinations.

Hurry Up and Grill: Dad’s Awesome Grilling Cookbook

Got a dad who loves his grill but lacks the patience to follow an elaborate recipe? This book has more than 100 recipes that each fit on one page (making them very easy to follow) plus useful techniques and author Bob Sloan’s humorous yet useful musings on manly topics, ranging from items such as “how to talk to your butcher,” to “how to properly de-skewer,” to “how to order wine off any list.” Some shortcuts are used in the ultra-fast recipes, such as using prepared sauces instead of making them from scratch.

For Grill Purists: Weber’s Way to Grill

Despite the book having an affiliation with a specific manufacturer, the advice, tips, techniques, and recipes provided by food writer Jamie Purviance are useful for any serious griller who likes experimenting with ingredients and recipes. The interesting yet easy-to-make recipes range from traditional to ethnic, and there are comprehensive, well-organized sections discussing preparation and cooking, all accompanied by clear photographs.

The Bottom Line

With the variety of cookbooks to choose from, you can recharge your favorite grill guru’s barbecue repertoire and play the part of the happy taste-tester all summer long!

Sofia Layarda, MPH

Alumni: University of California, Berkeley – Sofia believes in bringing back fun and pleasure into everyday eating. She loves cooking, and is constantly experimenting with ingredients, creating recipes and trying them out on family and friends. Her latest interest lies in finding realistic and practical ways of environmentally-friendly food/eating habits.