On the Global Barbecue Trail with Steven…

This whole barbeque journey started for us several years ago after receiving our first cookbook, Project Smoke, as a gift. Who knew that would turn into this amazing adventure of grilling and smoking?

Over the past 3 years (2-1/2 with the club), we have enjoyed creating over 500 recipes from 12 of Steven’s cookbooks, the web, and a few test recipes. We were honored to be recipe testers for Steven’s most recent cookbook—Project Griddle—AMAZING! We now have a new love of cooking on the plancha and use it often.

Completing these 500+ recipes has obviously been time consuming but also an education in food prep. (mise en place), sharing kitchen space and learning more about temperatures and grill times. One lesson learned: don’t smoke the sliced bread ahead of time for the chocolate bread pudding. We ended up with a twice-smoked recipe. Rookie mistake: we didn’t read the recipe ALL THE WAY THROUGH!

There is a big downside to creating and perfecting these recipes over time . . . we have become more particular (picky) when it comes to our culinary choices, expectations, and enjoyment of eating out at restaurants. Sometimes the experiences leave us glaring at each other, mentioning what we would do differently to make it better. When we do find an hors d’oeuvres, sauce, cooking technique or even a dish presentation that we enjoy, we attempt to replicate it at home. Surprisingly, we’ve gotten quite good at this and we are thankful for this experience in helping us get to this stage.

We jumped into this and never looked back. Our advice to others, who may be more apprehensive, is to start small. Be curious about unknown ingredients, experiment with different grilling and cooking techniques/styles and have your local pizzeria on speed dial. (Just kidding—we’ve never had to do that!) Take your time to read, shop, prep, grill and enjoy!

When you prepare food for yourself or others, you are doing more than creating a meal for family and friends. You are setting the stage for people to gather and make wonderful memories.

Thank you to Steven Raichlen for continuing to challenge us and provide us with amazing culinary experiences.

A special “thank you” to Robert and Alynne Douglass for creating The Barbeque 500 Club, for sharing their love of grilling, and for pouring so much time and energy into this endeavor. We are excited and honored to be a part of it! #bbqb500

Check out our 1000+ Recipes section here on Barbecue Bible.Com

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