The Review; Can't recommend the book!

During the summer and fall of 2011 I made all 50 recipes in the book "A Man, A Can, A Grill" and blogged about it -  It was kind of a man-version of the "Julie and Julia" blog (and movie) where Julie Powell, a fan of Julia Child, made every recipe in her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook. I just ripped off the idea, but gave full credit where credit is due.
Of the 50 recipes there were five my wife and I actually LIKED. (1) Big Ball of Shrimp Scampi, (2) Pocketful of Spam (except it would be better with HAM!) (3) Spam Goes Hawaiian (basically Spam Kabobs - make it with HAM!), (4) Buffalo Chicken Pizza (except make it with Boboli bread or some other prepared pizza dough. The pizzas in this book end up looking like autopsies!) and (5) Jah Mon Jerk Pork Chops. The rest left us with questions:

1) What should we eat WITH IT (the book gives little advice about side dishes, and when it does they were not much to OUR liking).
2) Why so much BEER marinade?
3) Must EVERYTHING be marinaded? Why not some basic rubs or why does he not recommend smoking anything?
4) I get that the title says "A Man. a CAN etc." but why use SPAM in a can when ham tastes and grills so much better?
5) Why do so many of the recipes mix tomatoes and fruit?

Toward the end of the adventure, I found myself checking OTHER books. If for example, the recipe was to be Chicken Breasts and Cherries, (YUK!!!) I'd look in the Weber Big Book of Grilling to see what THAT said about chicken and fruit. Often when I did this cross-check the second recipe was vastly better, so I would go with that. Of course, that's not how it was done in Julia and Julia I'm afraid! She followed every recipe to the letter.
The book "A Man A Can A Grill" has some pretty good sandwiches but here again there were problems. In many cases the marinade, which is also used for basting the meat during grilling, is so sloppy it's hard to eat and also it tends to douse the coals so they don't burn right. Also true of meat entrees such as the Red Hot Ribs. I couldn't baste them because the sloppy marinade kept dousing the coals. Consequently, they weren't really red hot!
The recipe for a basic hamburger is another sloppy, hard to eat mess. Here, I recommend adding a binder of some kind: bread crumbs, grinded-up chips or grinded-up soda crackers, but of course anything you add affects not only the texture but also the flavor. My other grilling books all have better recipes for the basic hamburger.
Pork chops on the grill are great, and there are wonderful marinades that can really enhance the flavor and keep them tender. I can't say I'm that fond of ANY of the marinades in this book, including those recommended for tenderloin.
And finally, the recipe for beer can chicken isn't nearly as good as many others I have.
In short, though it has a small number of interesting recipes, I can't recommend this grilling cookbook. In every case if you want to make something on your grill - chicken, burgers, pork chops, fish - I would recommend a DIFFERENT grilling cookbook! Every book I own has a MUCH BETTER version of very recipe in "A Man, A Can, A Grill." For any beginning or advanced griller, I'd recommend spending the extra few bucks and buying the WEBER BIG BOOK OF GRILLING. No, I don't work for Weber. For more info, see my blog www.mancangrill.blogspot.com.