Latin Grilling

Having directed a culinary academy in Florida, and currently teaching food science at New York University, Castro (Simply Mexican) provides a well-thought-out syllabus balancing the love of grilling up a fiesta with the often overlooked culinary reality that Latin America is "a huge region made up of many countries." Employing 90 different recipes, she creates 10 cookout menus, each with a cocktail, starters, entrees, sides, and a dessert, and each representative of different locales and their various influences. The Yucatecan Barbecue plays off that area's love of citrus with a lime-marinated shrimp and crab, while the Nicaraguan Ranch Roast includes a coffee-rubbed cowboy rib-eye, bringing together two essential staples from that country. Regionalized drinks include a Peruvian pisco sour and Cuba's "national cocktail," the mojito. Coconut cupcakes finish off a Brazilian rodizio, while in the northern Andes, Venezuelan chocolate pudding is the preferred dessert. In addition to the brief food geography lessons that begin each chapter, there are "menu game plans" for plotting out the meal time line, from prepping a day in advance to wrapping leftover grilled pork to use later for cubano sandwiches. (Apr.)