If you have read and/or cooked from Global Grilling, I’d love to hear what you think of the book.

Below are questions for individual pondering or group discussion, and for anyone or any club that’s been cooking and reading the Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club’s most recent pick, Global Grilling: Sizzling Recipes from Around the World by Jay Solomon.

Certain questions pertain to all books—like “Which recipes do you like best?”, “Will you likely cook from this book again?”, “Did you enjoy the author’s writing style and voice?”, and so on. But I’ve found that each cookbook generates its own set of questions, based on the content of the book and the author’s bent. It would be easier to just copy and paste the recurring questions each time we discuss a new DCCC pick, and leave it at that, but that wouldn’t do justice to the wide variety of approaches that exist—even to the same subject. (Yes, indeed, there are different ways to boil an egg.)

• This book has much less text, and generally less personal text, than Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread, the club’s previous pick, and yet each chapter has an opener and each recipe an introduction. Though the recipe intros usually focuses on the cultural origin of the recipes, appropriate for a book called Global Grilling, they are not without personal stories or reflections. Do you like Jay Solomon’s writing style, and the amount of writing? Why?
• One of the selling points of Global Grilling is that none of the recipes are difficult or overly involved. Did you find this to be true? Were there any recipes that took longer than you expected, or were more difficult to make than you expected? Is there anything in the recipe instructions that you think could be clearer?
• This book takes a worldwide view of grilling in just 116 pages. What do you think of cookbooks with an international scope? Do you enjoy cooking from them, or do you find the experience of cooking from books organized this way too unfocused or lacking in-depth exploration?
• At a very affordable “no-risk” price of $4.95, this book could be viewed as a world flavors springboard for cooks looking for a new favorite foreign food. After sampling flavors from around the world, the aspiring global food trotter can decide what grabs their palate, and then invest in a weightier and costlier tomb devoted to that specific cuisine. Was this your experience with this book? Did you use fall in love with a foreign cuisine featured in this book that you now want to explore further?
• What did you learn about grilling that you didn’t know before using this book? Were you surprised by anything?
• Did you learn any new grilling or cooking techniques or approaches to grilling or cooking that you’ll continue to use?
• Was Global Grilling your first foray into grilling? If so, do you think it is a good introduction for someone new to grilling? Was there enough of the “basics” covered?
• In general, what do you think of the food? Did you enjoy it?
• Of all the recipes you tried, whether prepared by you or someone else, which are your favorites?
• Do you think you will make recipes from this book again? If not, why not?