The stories in the book were awesome, and you get recipes too
341373
The stories in the book were awesome, and you get recipes too!  I love that these short stories are interconnected. Lexi Blake writes awesome characters.  You cant help but love them.
3421087
I really liked it! The recipes actually helped me a lot baking. The pictures are great and the recipes delicious. Until now, I tried cooking some of them and everybody loved it!
4789617
If you like to cook, then you will love this book because it has some awesome recipes in it. It also has a good story , about a lady and her life. It starts when she was very young and continue until she meets the man she will marry. Their command interest in food and the many dish that they make together.
3613012
It looks weird on my IPad, but the recipes are great. Even I can make these and I really am the worst cook in America. I loved the stories.
334863
This is a great idea. I really enjoyed all the recipes and the short stories are wonderful. I enjoyed this book immensely and look forward to trying some of the recipes.
1487884
Lots of great recipes, as well as amazing photos and cool anecdotes.  Even a nice cooking with kids section.  You'll love it.
1701246
For the record, I never read the blog these women write.  I just thought this would be a great book to get some recipes from.  But the best parts weren't the recipes but the stories about how the girls came together as friends and started to explore cooking both seperately and together.  I enjoyed the stories about their mistakes and how they learned not to cook certain things because they would be so good they would in demand so much the girls wouldn't be able to actually enjoy any socialization time at their own get togethers.  As far as the recipes go, we made a few of the dips which were quite good, and the yogurt spagehetti thing which really wasn't so good.  The recipes range from super simple to fairly complex.
1257639
As a newbie to solar cooking, I found the recipes in here to be very helpful.  I have made several of them already.  I also love the stories she tells in the book.  I just love Jackass Jill.
4782211
I loved the stories, they brought back memories of my childhood and family.  I was surprised and happy to find recipes at the end too!
2272485
I got this as a gift for my little brother and he loved it! I read through it before gifting it to him and thought it was hilarious. It also has some really great recipes that aren't complicated at all. The recipes don't have a ton of ingredients, they aren't hard to find, and the instructions are simple and clear. You won't find anything too complicated in here, but they are all really great recipes to use.
293638
My wife ordered this book and thinks it is a great compilation of all the  other "good stuff" you might want to make as an appetizer or just  add as a side dish to spice up your meal (so, that's where they got the  title from!).  Overall, we enjoyed reading this book and looking at all the  different recipes they offered.  One of the first recipes in the book is  for a country pate (which they extoll as being the greatest thing since  sliced bread), and if you're into pate, it actually sounds quite tasty.  Our BIGGEST concern with this recipe is that they sort of forget to tell  you how much chicken liver you need to use for this recipe (although they  are very specific about all the other ingredients).  Sort of makes us worry  about what's missing in the rest of the book.  Other than that, it's a  pretty neat reference.  p.s.  If anyone gets this book and figures out what  the amount is, please let us know.  : )
4917903
The writers of the this cookbook approached the topic with such dedication and fervor and it shows in each recipe included (and they are all delicious!)
584661
This book is an absolute must for heavy metal lovers, even if they are not avid cooks. Most of the recipes sound great and the few that are left have amusing stories with them (even though they're for things like cheese toast). Almost every recipe has a blurb from the recipe provider and many of the recipes are written with quite a lot of personality to them. The mix of artists is fantastic too. Off the top of my head, there's:

Anthrax
Cattle Decapitation
Lamb of God
Whitechapel
Psychostick
Lita Ford
Guns n Roses
Strapping Young Lad
Genitorturers
Cancer Bats
Testament
Dillinger Escape Plan
Shinedown
Motorhead
Ozzy Osbourne (band, not him)
Alice Cooper (band, not him)
3 Inches of Blood
Black Label Society
Dog Fashion Disco/El Creepo/Polka Dot Cadaver (lead singer for all of them provided a recipe)
Megadeth
Testament
More I can't remember. There are only a few artist repeats (Anthrax I know provided at least two), so there is plenty of variety.

With that being said, these recipes are NOT the height of cuisine. I knew that going into it, but some of the reviews suggest that others were expecting more. There are a few surprisingly sophisticated dishes, but almost everything is good, rib-sticking comfort food- the kind you would expect a heavy metal band to chow down on after a show. Get this book because you love the music. The quality of the book is just fine. The pictures are a bit low quality (black and white), but that's hardly a big deal.
3267319
This book is half cookbook, half documentary. The stories he writes as they travel from place to place are extremely entertaining. It makes me want to go out and buy a motorcycle and replicate what he's done in this book. Most of the recipes are simple and easy to cook but taste great. Some recipes are real contributions from the restaraunts they visited and others are Alton's attempt to duplicate what he tasted. Worth the purchase!
1151410
I'm about halfway thru this and am enjoying both the recipes and the short stories
4925531
I bought this book as an impulse buy.  Amazon suggested to me while I was purchasing my smoker and I took the bait.  It was worth it, there are some great recipes in there.  Recipes are what you should use this book for, it is not so much a smoking instruction book as it is a recipe book, though smoking tips and temperatures are giving in the recipes.

I've tried the coffee rub for the pork shoulder which was easy and fantastic.  I've also tried the fancy chicken rub (pesto and goat cheese) which was pretty good too.  It kept the chicken moist, but I didn't really get much of the pesto flavor. Next time I'd try it with the optional rub as well.

I've also tried two BBQ sauce recipes, the Memphis and the vinegar.  I was not a fan of the Memphis sauce.  The vinegar was not bad.  It's not a traditional sauce, it's more of a juice.  I'd like to try some of the sweet ones.  The variety of flavors they have for each section (sectioned out into meat types, then sauces, then a bunch of other sections) is great.  There is something for every taste, and the authors go into the history behind each recipe as well.

Now for the small gripes:

Aside from the mediocre Memphis bbq sauce, I am surprised there was nothing in the book about brining. If there is, it is buried and I can't find it.  It's not in the index.  It's so important to brine a lot of your meats to keep them tender and flavorful.  I think there should have been a section about why to brine and some good brine mixtures.  I instead learned my techniques from Alton Brown.  If i'm wrong and it is in the book, I will take all of this back.

One other thing I have to question is some of the internal meat temperatures.  For the Goat Cheese/Pesto rub recipe, it say to cook the chicken to 180 to 185 F.  The recommended internal cooking temp for chicken is 165 (I would go about 170 or 175 to be safe).  Why such a high temp?  There was no reason given.

Overall this book keeps me excited to bbq.  It's packed full of recipes and rubs that will keep me busy for a long time.
3240534
I just got this and I'm excited to try these out. I don't mind the black & white photos at all considering the price of the book, so I don't know this bothers the other reviewers so much. Also you can tell that a lot of love went into these recipes, and each one has a little story that goes with it to explain why the author likes it.