Good eats from a grilling expert.
A grilling guide from a man who has your interests—food that is delicious, nutritious and safe—at heart.
Rose dodges the brawny barbecue bozo—with the blast-furnace heat and the dance of the repeated meat-flip—on his way to a less dramatic, more luscious and decidedly less poisonous grilling experience. The book is best approached in two steps: a good read-through and then as an occasional reference on grill day. Rose takes great pains throughout the book to show the griller how to avoid contamination of food—from freezing to washing to high racks for rendering fat during the cooking process to (it can’t be repeated enough) washing your hands—and an equal amount of time is spent describing how to get the best flavor out of your meat, as well as the greatest nutritional value (hint: go slow). Ribs, steaks, pork chops, chicken and burgers are each handled in separate chapters, which all come fully complemented with color photographs that convey a visual sense of how things ought to look on the grill. The big picture is drawn step by step. Rose is a good coach, leaving nothing unspoken this first time through, but once he feels he has covered the bases, he also gets into greater nuance, explaining hot spots, which cuts to put where on the grill, the single-flip technique, when to sauce and what to do when you encounter raw spots when cutting the meats. From there, he moves on to sauces and wood types. By the end of the book, readers may feel like they’ve been brought into the inner circle of grilling wisdom. Throughout, Rose has a homey voice, but it is plainly evident that he’s done his homework: “Over time this low-pH sauce will build and begin eating your grill from the bottom up. Much, much worse will be the risk of producing cancer-causing agents in the bottom of your grill.” And you thought you were just eating a pork chop.
Good eats from a grilling expert.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4923-0350-3
Page Count: 178
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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