Grady Spears has staked out the Texas cowboy-turned-chef territory with such cookbooks as The Texas Cowboy Kitchen, A Cowboy in the Kitchen, Cowboy Cocktails, and the minimalist The Great Steak Book. He either owns, has owned, or been a consultant to scads of restaurants from Ft. Worth (home) to Beverly Hills (hallucination).

 

In Cooking the Cowboy Way, which he co-authored with food journalist, June Naylor, Grady gets downright philosophical: “It’s a life where boots and hats are always about function, not fashion… When your days are filled with the smell of fresh-cut hay and the creaking of worn leather, when you wake up with the sun and to the smell of coffee on the boil and biscuits from the chuck wagon, you are living the Cowboy Way.” Which is to say, I guess, don’t bother trying if your days have nothing to do with that.

 

The Cowboy Way is a sidebar design feature that turns up every few pages in the book with cowboy insights and information such as, “Each cabin has a remote controlled gas fireplace, so you don’t even have to get out of bed to adjust the flame.” Ah, the Cowboy Way is the life for me. It’s kind of a repetitive thing – Cowboy Way, Cowboy Way, Cowboy Way – and, like those oft repeated Weapons of Mass Destruction, say it often enough and you find you have good reason to invade Iraq, or serve cowboys Green and Citrus Salad with Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette.

 

OK. I’ve had my fun. There are a lot of terrific recipes in this book, the one I just mentioned among them (it has Spanish chorizo in it as well as a mix of citrus and avocado). Why it has to be packaged as something it isn’t, I don’t understand. The tag line says the recipes were inspired by campfires, chuck wagons, and ranch kitchens. But the (mostly) Texas ranches in Cooking the Cowboy Way are of the dude persuasion, if not outright spas. Ranches with steakhouses and conference accommodations attached. There isn’t a working cowboy alive who can afford a night at Rancho de la Osa in Sasabe, Arizona. And that’s a shame because the place sounds fabulous and the food that shows up in this cookbook is ever so tempting: Lamb Tenderloin with Green Olive Jam, Asparagus and Portobello Enchiladas in Chipotle Cream, Baked Acorn Squash with Pistachios. I’m down.

 

There are desserts to be tried like Toby’s Crème Brulee or Kumquat Refrigerator Pie, cocktails like Blood Orange Mimosas, Bloody Maria, and West Texas Sunrise; meat dishes like Ranch-Rubbed Prime Rib, Porterhouse Steaks with Wildcatter Steak Rub, Ranchero Grilled Quail with Vaqueros Migas, Fish Tacos, and Longhorn Chili. The baked goods are an impressive lot, and so too are the salads and the dressings.

 

But hey, I’d really like to see Grady Spears explain to a working cowboy how using good-quality balsamic vinegar is the key to his Wild Mustang Salad. It’s not that I disagree. I just don’t get the Cowboy Way of it.

 

By Grady Spears with June Naylor

Andrews McMeel Publishing

ISBN-10: 0740773925

$29.99