"Sunset Magazine" news and stories

All across the country, people spent time this last weekend getting out their Webers, hibachis and propane behemoths. They cleaned off the dust that accumulated over the winter and fired them up. Now that so many grills are summer-ready, I figured it would be a good idea to talk about a cookbook that is devoted to helping you make the most of your outdoor kitchen (even if it only consists of a rickety $10 grill perched on your fire escape).

Sunset Magazine has published a new tome on outdoor cookery, entitled The Sunset Grill: 125 Tasty Recipes for Casual Get-Togethers and Easy Weeknight Cookouts. Sunset has been writing about outdoor cooking since 1938, so they know their stuff. With this book, they've carefully culled the best of their past, updated it and blended it with recipes for salads, sorbets and desserts, to create a balanced and well-rounded book that will be interesting to all cooks (whether or not they grill).

Flipping through this volume gets me excited for summer food and I've already dog-eared recipes for the Grilled Beer-Cooked Bratwurst, Grilled Green-Onion Breads and the Bacon-Olive Potato Salad.

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Cooking Bold and Fearless was originally published by the folks at Sunset Magazine back in 1957. My copy dates from 1961 and was one in the stack of books I picked up back in December at a Portland thrift store (which one it was escapes me right at the moment). I bought it because of the cover, all those colors and that grandiose title made me think that it might contain some good stuff (or at the very least, some highly entertaining kitsch).

All the recipes in the book come from the magazine's column "Chefs of the West," in which they regularly published recipes and short articles penned by home cooks and backyard grill masters from up and down the West Coast. (Does anyone know if this column is still included in the magazine? It's been years since I've had my hands on a copy of Sunset, so I have no idea. My guess would be no, though).

The recipes range from the frighteningly retro to the interestingly timeless. The most intriguing thing about this book is that all the contributors seem to be men. I guess Sunset assumed that only those of the male persuasion would be interested in cooking boldly and without fear.

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