Just in time for summer cook-outs Authors@Google NY welcomed Fred Thompson, author of Barbecue Nation: 350 Hot-Off-the-Grill, Tried-and-True Recipes from America's Backyard . Thompson has searched across the U.S. for America's best backyard cooks and their favorite recipes--not chefs' fancy interpretations of barbecue classics or pitmasters' ways with barbecue that the reader can't reproduce at home, but 350 recipes that are easy to recreate in anybody's backyard

Barbecue Nation is a culinary mosaic of what 14 million Americans like to do most when it comes to cooking--make dinner at the grill. Fred reflects on America's ever-changing populations, with recipes with the flavors of Cuba from South Florida, or Brooklyn-born Jamaican jerk, or the taste of Vietnam from the coast of Texas, as well as the country's regional bounties, including grilled salmon recipes from the Pacific Northwest, brats from the Midwest, and Delta Grilled Catfish.

Fred Thompson is a food writer, food stylist, and culinary developer. The author of three cookbooks, he is a columnist for the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina and teaches regularly at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York City, the Greenbrier, and the Viking Culinary Centers. A member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and IACP, he lives in Raleigh and New York City.