Page 38 - Barbecue News DEC 2020 Digital Issue

There’s been so many books on sauces that this was al- ready a very hard topic in which to set oneself apart. But author Ray Sheehan was up to the task and the quality he put into this book shone through. In the column where I first reviewed this book, I referenced Paul Kirk’s 1997 book “Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue Sauces” as the semi- nal title in this sub-category. Kirk had set the standard by which many more would come to challenge but none top- ple. Sheehan’s book didn’t exactly topple Kirk’s; rather, it stood all the rest on their heads by going in a direction that none other had attempted nearly as successfully. “Award- Winning BBQ Sauces and How to Use Them” included recipes for only 10 sauces. But where others stuffed hun- dreds of recipes in scores of pages just to fill up a book be- tween its covers, Sheehan took those 10 recipes and spun out gold, diving into the details of each and showing its readers the myriad of directions one could go toward mak- ing amazing barbecue. It was a risky way to do it but great risk leads to great rewards. You as the reader are the bene- ficiary of those rewards with this book. Congratulation to Ray Sheehan and his publisher, Page Street Publishing, on winning the 14th edition of the Barbecue News Magazine Barbecue Book of the Year Award.
Here follows that list of past winners. In the meantime, may I wish the happiest of holiday seasons to every one of you and thank you for reading.
2007 - “Dr. BBQ’s Big-Time Barbecue Road Trip” by Ray Lampe ($16.95, St. Martins Griffin, 272 pp.)
2008 - “The Best Barbecue on Earth: Grilling Across 6 Con- tinents and 26 Countries With 170 Recipes” by Rick Browne ($22.95, Ten Speed Press, 254 pp.)
2009 - “Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ Book: Recipes and Secrets from a Legendary Barbecue Joint” by Chris Lilly ($24.99, Clarkson Potter, 256 pp.)
2010 – “The Kansas City Barbeque Society Cookbook 25th Anniversary Edition” by Ardie Davis, Paul Kirk and Carolyn Wells ($24.99, Andrews McMeel, 318 pp.)
2011 – “Smokin’ with Myron Mixon: Recipes Made Simple from the Winningest Man in Barbecue” by Mixon and Kelly Alexander ($22, Ballantine, 192 pp.)
2012 – “Wicked Good Barbecue: Fearless Recipes from Two Damn Yankees Who Won the Biggest, Baddest BBQ Com- petition in the World” by Andy Husbands and Chris Hart ($21.99, Fair Winds Press, 224 pp.)
2013 - “America’s Best BBQ Homestyle: What the Champi- ons Cook in Their Own Backyard” by Ardie Davis and Paul Kirk ($19.99, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 180 pp.)
2014 - “Wiley’s Championship BBQ: Secrets That Old Men
Take to the Grave” by Wiley McCrary, Janet McCrary and Amy Paige Condon ($19.99, Gibbs Smith, 216 pp.)
2015 - “Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto” by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay ($29.99, Ten Speed Press, 224 pp.)
2016 - “Smokin’ Hot in the South: New Grilling Recipes from the Winningest Woman in Barbecue” by Melissa Cookston ($22.99, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 192 pp.)
2017 – TIE: “Praise the Lard: Recipes and Revelations from a Legendary Life in Barbecue” by Mike Mills and Amy Mills ($25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 336 pp.) AND “Pitmaster: Recipes, Tech- niques & Barbecue Wisdom” by Andy Husbands and Chris Hart ($24.99, Fair Winds Press, 224 pp.)
2018 - “Cool Smoke: The Art of Great Barbecue” by Tuffy Stone ($29.99, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pp.)
2019 - “Operation BBQ: 200+ Smokin’ Recipes from Com- petition Grand Champions by Stan Hays, Tim O’Keefe and Cindi Mitchell ($30, Page Street Publishing, 352 pp.)
2020 - “Award-Win- ning BBQ Sauces and How to Use Them: The Secret Ingredient to Next- Level Smoking” by Ray Sheehan ($21.99, Page Street Publishing, 176 pp.)
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