He then turns to beef recipes like Grilled Shallot-Cognac Steaks, Rodney's Tequila Porterhouse Inebriated Top Round (am I sensing a theme here?), and for the designated driver, Dr. Pepper Beef Brisket. The section on fish and seafood offers up ways to grill delectable dishes like Aunt Lilly's Sizzling Lobster, Venetian Stuffed Calamari, and Dungeness Crab Cakes with basil mayonnaise. There are lamb recipes like Assyrian Grilled Leg of Lamb with pomegranate sauce, Maple Smoked Lamb Shanks with whiskey onion marmalade, and more. Of course no grilling cookbook would be complete without a section on pork: here we have such dishes as Bacon-Wrapped Smoked Pork Tenderloin, Grilled Pork Chops with Peach Chutney, and Roast Suckling Pig (okay, I'm feeling a bit of grill envy here: my Webber just isn't able to hold an entire pig).

There's wonderful-sounding chicken dishes like Leroy Brown's Thai BBQ Chicken (Browne claims this is the "best chicken" he ever had, and I plan on putting that claim to the test in short order) and other poultry dishes like Smoky Mountain Cornish Hens with wild rice and BBQ Peking Duck with cold duck-hoisin sauce. Not to mention Browne's "signature" dish that has generated considerable press: "Beer Butt Chicken," which is much like it sounds: a whole chicken grilled upright on a half-empty beer can (a copy of the recipe is available on Browne's Barbecue America website. And since no grilling or barbecue experience would be complete without side dishes or the sauce, he offers up a whole host of interesting sides and sauces for aspiring grillers to tinker with. And for the truly adventurous, there's even a section on wild game.

The recipes of course form the core of the book. But what makes it more fun than your basic collection of recipes is the other stuff that Browne adds, from cartoon pictures to silly poems like "Bubba's Got the Mop" (a barbecue-inspired riff on "Casey at the Bat"). He also recounts his experiences at various festivals and events around the country, such the World Championship Bar-B-Que Contest in Houston Texas (as Browne points out, despite the name, all the contestants come from the U.S., and almost 100% of them are from Texas: "Other contests . . . actually invite participants from foreign countries. Her the world includes . . . Texas"). He heroically recounts his trip to the Annual Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine, where he performed the culinary equivalent of a triple jump:

""Triple Lobster Dinner - $22.95." Twenty three bucks for THREE lobsters! Well, this triple hit a home run in my gustatory heart. A dream come true, a life-enriching experience (for me, anyway - the lobsters weren't quite so lucky), a culinary and gluttonous milepost was within three paper plates of being achieved.

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