Most for your money cookbook

Or buy three pounds of round steak and marinate it in a pint of American white wine made all the more intoxicating with a teaspoon of genuine Texas chili powder — that is, all the more intoxicating in flavor, for none of the alcohol is left in the meat after it's cooked. When you add one grated onion and the inevitable clove of garlic you have the chili-ajo that spicy mixture of chilies and garlic in which most meats are drenched in Mexico and along the border. Turn the meat a few times while it's taking the stimulating wine bath, let it stay there a couple of hours; then take it out, dry it off and rub in salt, cayenne pepper and bacon grease. If possible, do the barbecuing over hot coals; if not, under the gas grill. BARBECUING INDOORS AND OUT II3 The whole trick is in marinating, which softens and flavors the meat, and in basting lavishly with sauce of any peppery degree Fahrenheit. Naturally, there is no limit to suitable kinds of flesh, fish and fowl. Game is great in this fashion, especially obese young possum or porcupine, and tame ducks come out almost as tasty as wild ones. If you want a dish that will lay them in the hammocks, try Mexican Duck. The bigger and tenderer the better, so one fat duck is always a good buy; it costs about one-third less than chicken. Or you might get a better bargain in two small ones, although there'll be more bone to throw away. Whichever you choose, tie bay leaves over their protruding bay windows, dip 'em in a bath made with one cup of water and another of onion juice, chant a line of " California, here we come!" and dump in a whole pint of native sherry to keep the ducks contented. A quarter pound of butter will do to start things spluttering nicely and half that much olive oil, say a wineglassful, to give that foreign smack. Besides salt and black pepper, half a teaspoon of red cayenne goes in and a whole tablespoon of dried marjoram. After sousing the ducks in their natty vests of bay leaf with plenty of this sauce you perch them on the grill and start basting. Turn them often and when they've acquired a regular lifesaver tan just pop 'em into a roasting pan, give 'em a shower bath by dumping on all the liquid that's left; then let 'em sizzle away till you can't wait any longer. We Browns took up the fragrant trail in Texas some years ago and had the time of our young lives following it through big outdoor frolics called fiestas campestras (countryside fetes) and barbacoas serranas (hillside barbecues). At most of these roundups the roasting was done on hot stones under the ground, and all the way through Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, the Argentine and Brazil we burned tongues and fingers in sampling local styles. We spent years with South American peons, senores, Indians, hidalgos and padraos, growling over our portions of venison, paca, wild pig and equally porcine armadillos cooked in their shells, with accompanying papas (potatoes), camotes, chayotes and chuchu, yams, tropical squashes and fruits roasted to a turn in the embers.