NASCAR: Race Day Grub

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Restaurant chefs write cookbooks, so do those at culinary schools. Home cooks and food writers also contribute, as do food historians who collect recipes. What about celebrities who have no credentials other than someone told them they should write a cookbook about what other celebrities eat? These are fan books - often bought more for the celebrity photos and insider stories than the recipes. Mario Batali wrote a NASCAR cookbook last year full of serviceable recipes and plenty of celebrity driver, celebrity chef, and fan snapshots. On the growing NASCAR bookshelf, here comes Angela Skinner's Race Day Grub (Wiley 2007). If you are new to NASCAR (this is an officially licensed book) then you may not know Angela's name. Her husband, Mike Skinner, who contributed the foreword, is a big-time NASCAR driver. She spends her time driving around the country with Mike as he competes. Race Day Grub is a collection of Angela's recipes along with contributions from other famous drivers, their wives and mothers. If you are into NASCAR, this book is all about the famous names and ambitious (and not so ambitious) dishes eaten at campsites and motor homes at the raceways plus plenty of photos of drivers, their mates and buddies, racetracks and the people who work on them. NASCAR is all about the fans' experience around the track as much as the racing itself. Each weekend we all – the drivers, their families, the race crews and, of course, the fans – gather at a track as one big NASCAR family, and the meal and times we spent together captures the ultimate experience of a NASCAR race. (p. 9) There are few sports other than cricket and various world championships, that take so long and pride themselves on so much eating and cooking ritual. The first chapter covers breakfast foods including Skinnerite Breakfast Casserole (p. 12), essentially a sausage and egg bake with cheese. Pork sausage and bacon seem to be in many of Angela's recipes. The recipe came from Mike'sfans who hold a toga party in his honor (there is a snapshot of them (The Skinerites) above the recipe). Many of the recipes in the second chapter called Speedy Starters and Snacks have curious names like Smoke's Shrimp (p. 18), created by two-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Champion Tony Stewart, who has a barbecue sauce called Smoke Bar-B-Que Sauce, after his nickname. It is essentially shrimp wrapped with bacon marinated and grilled with barbecue sauce (he recommends his own brand). Hamballs (p. 24) from Ken Enck of Enck's Custom Catering are served in the Cup garage. They are sausage and ham balls that are baked and coved with a brown sugar sauce half way through. Some of the menu notes have gems for fans. Bodine Dip (p. 31) comes from Todd Bodine, driver of the No. 30 Germain Toyota in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Todd's original recipe called for "1/8 inch garlic sale in a cap." Figuring only race-car drivers or fabricators would know how much that was, I convinced my husband to show me the measurement. It equals about one teaspoon. The recipe makes a cream cheese, garlic and onion dip. The fun of Race Day Grub is trying to figure out what a cap is. Race Day Grub is a book for fans, and there are plenty of them. Pick it up if you are invited to the track and want to sound in the know about who is racing and what is on your plate. Previous articles: Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style Mario Batali: 2 Brothers [Cookbook Review - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef