Cottage Life Cookbook Special — Summer 2012

Description

We’re really excited about our special new publication, Summer Grilling–on newsstands now, and available from our online store. It’s a collection of 201 (I counted) great barbecue recipes from 25 years of Cottage Life.

It’s a natural evolution from our annual grill guides, which started appearing in our June issue in 2006. Of course, being cottagers, we’ve always had a lot of grilling recipes but, around 2005, we saw a need to do something different. We looked at what other magazines were doing—including Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Gourmet, Bon Appetit. Many had special grilling sections in summer issues, usually collections of recipes. Good recipes, mind you, but we knew from talking to readers that they wanted more in-depth info—the basic principles that would help improve barbecuing techniques for steak, or chicken, or whatever. Readers wanted to feel confident at the barbecue, even if they weren’t using our recipe, or any recipe.

Penny and I decided the way to do this was to narrow the focus. Instead of giving an across-the-board selection of recipes, we’d concentrate on one food at a time. We also decided to combine two barbecue experts, Jane Rodmell and Dave Zimmer. Jane, we knew, would give us fantastic recipes; Dave could explain expert techniques more clearly than anyone else, and he’d make it fun to read.