Secrets of a Sauce Queen

I was going to pull the plug on blog posts until after the holidays, but I had to write about this book. It was published in New Zealand (which means it's a tad hard to find if you're in the states), but you might be able to track down a copy online.

Secrets of a Sauce Queen by Trudie Burnham is a danged good book. Tasty.

And sauces, while not as essential as, let's say, instructions on how to grill a piece of food without killing it, are things that can make your plain food much more spectacular.

The sauces range from salad dressing so moles to fruit sauces to hollandaise to ... well pretty much any sort of sauce you might drizzle, baste, dip, slather, mop, or use as a marinade. It's all here.

I just finished wiping the last bits of barbecue sauce off my face, and I have to say that it was a freakishly simple recipe that was amazingly good.

Sure, a lot of books include a few sauces, but I think this will be the sort of book that cooks will turn to when they think, well, I'll grill the fish ... but maybe I should make a sauce.

Definitely recommended.