My girlfriend bought this for me for Christmas on a whim. Her reasoning was that I enjoyed grilling up meats in the summertime, and as such, I'd enjoy a book about barbecue. Unfortunately, the book just never struck me right. It was part cookbook, part how-to guide, part anecdotal reminiscing, and even part family photo album. I had trouble getting a feel for just what the point of it was, I guess, and it seems like the author was right there with me in looking for the purpose. It didn't help matters that Mike Mills used a lot of incorrect grammar (simple stuff like using "me" as the subject of a sentence) which may or may not have been an intentional move to make him seem like a more authentic good ol' boy. Whatever his intentions were, they just didn't sit right with me. And neither did Mills himself. I don't want to say that the guy came off as unlikeable, but his ego-to-humility ratio just seemed a little bit too high for me. He just seemed to do a little too much boasting about his competition medals and not enough straightforward "history of barbecue" stuff. But then, it is his book, after all - he can say whatever he wants to say, I suppose. I was just left a little bit disappointed when, after 300 pages, I couldn't really say I knew any more about barbecue than I did going into the book. I did, however, learn a whole lot about Mills' family life and his relationships with various different barbecue "all-stars" around the country. Oh well. The book wasn't terrible, but I don't think my girlfriend would have given it to me had she known how much of it was anecdotal, episodic fluff. On the bright side, the book contains many recipes and I am very eager to try out a number of them once the sun comes out a bit more. But before that magical first grilling day in March or April comes around, I've got plenty more backlog to plow through.
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