Joe Carroll, the man behind Fette Sau -- the one in Brooklyn and the one in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood -- has some tips on 'cue.
You just want to grill a better steak than the one you grilled last summer, or smoke a better brisket, or fire up a basket of vegetables that will leave your guests swooning. You don’t want to feel as if doing any of that is going to be a campaign. You’re not looking to go pro.
If so, Joe Carroll’s “Feeding the Fire” (Artisan, $29.95), written with Nick Fauchald, may be the most useful book of the current season. A collection of strategies and lessons as much as one of recipes and pronouncements, the book offers a helpful primer to those seeking guidance on an elementary question that bedevils many: how to use a grill or a smoker to their best effect under varying circumstances, all summer long.
Mr. Carroll is hardly barbecue royalty. He’s a home cook from New Jersey with no formal culinary training who runs a small kingdom of bars and restaurants in Brooklyn and Philadelphia devoted to the pleasures of live-fire cooking, most notably Fette Sau and St. Anselm. His kitchens celebrate no native barbecue tradition beyond Brooklyn’s own, which is to say: Mr. Carroll puts char on the food, and accompanies it with flavors that are of interest to his palate, wherever they come from.
Original source: The New York Times
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