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There is an art to preparing venison, make no mistake about it. Venison lacks fat (18% vs. 35% for a beef round tip), which may make it a heart healthy meat, but also tends
to make it dry out during roasting. Too, there is the problem of too much of a good thing. The same meat, served the same way, week in and week out, can be boring in the extreme.
 So when Harold Webster Jr's new book The Complete Venison Cookbook arrived... I promptly sent it on to my old friend Ruth.
Not only is Ruth the sort of person who finds reading cookbooks interesting, Ruth, by necessity, has become something of an expert with venison.Venison, in fact, makes up a large part of her family's
winter diet, along with the contents of her substantial garden.
I was curious to know if this was a cookbook for dabblers, or if there was real family fare here, that
could be produced in the average kitchen without resorting to multiple trips to the gourmet food store.
Ruth reports that she skimmed the section on Elegant Venison.
"Venison isn't something that should be served to company," she says and although the author does suggest grinding the venison for some recipes, she can't be bothered. She "chunks" it.
According to my friend, the book's strong points are Stroganoffs,
Chilies and Stews. There is also a nice selection of recipes, some of which make use of convenience foods, many of which don't, all of which are straightforward and good.
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