The Complete Meat Cookbook Authors

Bruce Aidells & Denis Kelly

Bruce Aidells

Since founding Aidells Sausage Company in San Leandro, California, in 1983, Bruce Aidells has earned a reputation as an innovator in the gourmet food industry and an authority in meat cooking.

Born in southern California, Aidells received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967 and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1974. His food career began as an effort to satisfy his own cravings when he was a medical researcher in London. Tired of pub grub, he stayed up all night one evening testing recipes, finally creating the juicy sausage he longed for.

In 1976, he returned to California to finish postdoctoral research in endocrinology at the University of California at Berkeley. To supplement his income, he began making gourmet sausages for a local charcuterie. Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook with chef friends ordering sausages, and Aidells traded in his lab coat for a chefs jacket. Flavored with such untraditional seasonings as lemongrass and sun-dried tomatoes, Aidells' sausages are available nationwide in specialty food stores, restaurants, and supermarkets.

Aidells is author of six cookbooks, including Barbecuing, Grilling and Smoking, which won an award for excellence from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and, with coauthor Denis Kelly, Hot Links & Country Flavors (which won an IACP award in 1990), Real Beer and Good Eats, and Flying Sausages. Aidells is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, including Bon Appetit and Gourmet, and appears frequently on radio and television. He and his wife, Nancy Oakes, live in the hills above Berkeley, California.

Denis Kelly

A teacher, writer, food and wine consultant, and activist, Denis Kelly grew up in Los Angeles and received his B.A. from St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, where he was introduced to the study of wine by the Christian Brothers. A Woodrow Wilson fellow, Kelly received his M.A. from Indiana University and did further graduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris, studying classics, language, comparative literature, and philosophy.

Returning to California to teach, he cooked in a Cajun restaurant near Berkeley and helped launch Friends of the Vineyards to protect area wineries from developers. Since 1978, when he founded his own public relations firm, he has acted as a consultant to wineries and restaurants in the Bay Area. Kelly teaches classes on food and wine in the extension program of the University of California and humanities at St. Mary's College. In addition to the four cookbooks co-authored with Bruce Aidells, Kelly has also written Creole and Cajun Cooking and has published many articles on food and wine in such magazines as Gourmet and Wine & Spirits.

A poet and storyteller, Kelly gives readings in the Oakland area. He and his wife, Kathryn, live and garden in Oakland and at their farm in the hills of Sonoma County.

The Complete Meat Cookbook
By Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly
A Chapters Book
688 pages
16 color photos and black and white illustrations
Hardcover, $35.00
ISBN 0-395-90492-7
Information provided by the publisher.