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Business & Tech

Newton Food Writer Knows Her Barbecue

Andrea Pyenson, food writer and cookbook author, talks about how she started writing about food, how even great cooks can set their ovens on fire and how Yankees can make some "wicked good" barbecue.

Food writer Andrea Pyenson is a Newtonite through and through. She went to , she lives in Waban – let’s face it, she’s a Yankee.

So it’s not all that surprising that when she and her two co-authors first pitched a barbecue cookbook, it was rejected by several publishers.

What is surprising about the rejection is that her co-authors are Andy Husbands and Chris Hart, two of the leaders of the award-winning competitive barbecue team iQue BBQ.

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“They basically said, ‘You’re from the Northeast. What could you possibly know about barbecue,” says Pyenson.

But Pyenson and her co-authors have surpassed the stereotypes and will release their new cookbook Wicked Good Barbecue next Thursday, March 1. The trio of authors seems to pay tribute to those initial rejections in the cookbook's subtitle:

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Fearless recipes from two damn Yankees who won the biggest, baddest BBQ competition in the world

If it isn't apparent enough in the cookbook title, Pyenson herself is no mere backyard griller.

She has always enjoyed barbecue and says her “entire family loves it.” In order to prepare for coauthoring the book, she even went through the process of becoming a certified barbecue judge of the Kansas City Barbecue Society (sponsors of the aforementioned “biggest baddest…competition”).

But when it comes to food writing, Pyenson came across the opportunity in a rather roundabout way.

She “always loved food, always loved to cook,” but with an undergrad degree in Spanish from Vassar and a journalism degree from Boston University Pyenson found herself as a high-tech writer for more than a dozen years.

Eventually, though, she “hit a wall” and decided she really wanted to write about food.

Never one to start at the bottom, she submitted a proposal to The Boston Globe  - “I think it was about what people cook at Rosh Hashanah,” she reminisces- and was delighted when it was accepted.

Fast-forward several years. Pyenson has continued to write about food for the Globe and has since contributed stories to Edible Boston and Edible Cape Cod magazines. She also edited the Boston Globe Seafood Cookbook.

While most of the recipes contained in the 2006 publication had already been tested before being printed in the Globe, the contributions from local celebrity chefs needed a bit of tinkering. As the editor, testing recipes was part of Pyenson’s job. However, this led to an unfortunate incident.

“When I was preparing Lydia Shire’s recipe, I started a fire in my oven,” laughs Pyenson. “It was incredibly delicious (the Open-Faced Crab and Asparagus Sandwich). You roast the bacon on parchment paper, and I’m not sure what happened. I think the paper caught fire… maybe I didn’t trim it enough.”

Undaunted, or perhaps inspired, by this fiery disaster, Pyenson decided to try her hand at actually authoring a cookbook. When her agent introduced her to fellow client Husbands, they came up with the concept that would eventually become Wicked Good Barbecue.

“I was a little worried at first,” explains Pyenson. “I think Andy had this idea about ‘extreme barbecue,’ and I wasn’t sure how accessible the recipes would be. Some of them are complicated, but they’re so delicious and really not all that hard- some of them just take a lot of time.”

The book has a mix of complex recipes involving days of roasting and smoking or a foam finish and others that actually use cake mix or simple dried herbs.

But what is surprising about the cookbook is that it was written in just three short months.

According to lauded chef and food writer David Lebovitz, “Most books have a one year lead time, which means you generally have a year to write the book. Then it can take another year to edit, re-test recipes, design and photograph the book. Finally, another year passes before the book is on the shelves.”

Pyenson, Husbands and Hart did spend close to four years preparing the book and initially shopping it around, but from when their proposal was accepted in fall 2010 until the book was handed off to Fair Winds Press, the publishers who were wise enough to accept it, only three months passed.

Although she loves her barbecue, Pyenson admits that given the choice, “and no health concerns, nothing to worry about but taste,” she’d probably only prepare dessert. 

But that doesn’t mean she has a dessert cookbook up her sleeve; she recognizes that her true love is writing about food.

So though she, Husbands and Hart are talking about doing another project together at some point, for the time being she will remain a contented contributor to the Globe and the edible publications. And, of course, a native Newtonite.

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