I've included product links from Amazon.com on my bbq blog and TheBBQGuy.com for about 9 years. During that time I've sold my share of 
Peace, Love, & Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue
by Mike Mills and Dr. BBQ's Big Time Barbecue Cookbook
by Ray Lampe, but without question the most popular selling bbq book on both sites combined together is Building Barbecues & Outdoor Kitchens
. It's a very inexpensive paperbook that sells for about $8 new and about $3 used on Amazon.com. It was published in 2001 and is only 144 pages, but it still outsells every other bbq book on my websites.
I don't own the book and I must confess that I am not very handy with a hammer and nails, bricks and mortar, or welders and plate steel, but I'm thinking about buying it to see for myself why it's so popular.
Although an outdoor kitchen is on my long list of needs and wants (Linda keeps shortening this list from time to time), I'll probably settle for updating my charcoal grill. I've been using a very little and cheaply built "Little Grill That Could" for the past several years and I think the time has come to upgrade to a Weber One Touch Gold
(I love the blue one) or Weber One Touch Platimum 
charcoal grill sometime soon. I'm not sure the stand is worth $100 extra or not, but I'm sure Linda will weigh in on that too if I'm lucky (or unlucky), depending on my ability to keep her in tune with my bbq wishes (or not).
Throughout my life, I have known many people who have built beautiful outdoor "kitchens" of fire brick BBQ's. Yet, for the vast majority, those monuments to weekend warriors lay neglected and unused. I question how many of these elaborate areas are merely built as status symbols.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to Ray Lampe, Several years ago I met him and judged his Q at the Illinois state competition. Nice to see he's still active! Makes some great food.