If you're weary of cookbooks sprinkled with "must" and "should" and references to rare ingredients, turn to the down-to-earth recipes from The Gardener and the Grill. Karen Adler and Judith Fertig will inspire you to plant a garden--even it it's just a few pots--and hose down the barbecue with their guarantee of four seasons filled with good, healthy eating.
While Adler and Fertig, the "BBQ Queens" of TV food shows, encourage complementing the solitary hobby of gardening with the social benefits of a barbecue, devotees of farmers markets will also find much to savor, with ingredients ranging from early snap peas to butternut squash. "Flexitarians" (semi-vegetarians) will delight in the many meatless entrees: only one of the five chapters features meat, but the grilled pizza, sandwiches and breads will satisfy any appetite. Soups are included, made with leftover grilled veggies; fruits from regions nationwide--apples to citrus--find a place on the grill, too.
The "tong-wielding" duo intersperse tips among the recipes. (A pound of asparagus is about what you can encircle with both hands, for example; you can use companion planting techniques in your garden to pair crops that will repel pests or enhance the soil for their "buddy plants.") Their user-friendly cookbook isn't just lovely to look at: it limits each recipe to a page, doable for even the novice griller, while detailing more esoteric aspects of cooking over fire such as planking, smoking or grill-roasting. Browse The Gardener and the Grill along with your seed catalogues, but NOT when you're hungry! --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller