The BBQ Queens

Like many 'foodies' Karen has a love affair with cookbooks. In fact, she started a company that features BBQ cookbooks. “I have to reign myself in when it comes to buying cookbooks. We actually added a room onto our kitchen so we could build bookcases for all of them!” laughs Adler. She is President/Owner of Pig Out Publications, Inc. offering over 250 books on the subject of BBQ and grilling, Karen is author of 11 cookbooks with 8 titles on the subject of barbecue. She is also an award-winning publisher of Texas Barbecue and Pure Prairie-Farm Fresh & Wildy Delicious Food from the Prairie. The Best Little Cookbook Series from Ten Speed Press, (Pub. Date June 20, 2000): Best Little Barbecue Cookbook, Best Little BBQ Sauces Cookbook, Best Little Grilling Cookbook, Best Little Marinades Cookbook From Pig Out Publications: Hooked on Fish on the Grill (August 1992) Easy Grilling & Simple Smoking with the BBQ Queens by Adler & Fertig (March 2001) (Published in 1997 as Que Queens-Easy Grilling & Simple Smoking)
Fish & Shellfish - Grilled & Smoked co-authored with Judith Fertig (2002, Harvard Common Press)
NEW The BBQ Queens' Big Book of Barbecue co-authored with Judith Fertig (April 2005, Harvard Common Press)

As a traveling culinary instructor, Karen specializes in outdoor cooking (fish, game, meat, and vegetables) and spreads the word of barbecue at her classes, and during interviews whether they be for print, radio, TV or the internet! She has taught cooking classes for the past 20 year. Schools where Karen has taught include Kitchen Conservatory-St. Louis, Halls-Kansas City, FoodFest in Phoenix AZ, Rochester MN, and the Quad cities, A Southern Season in Raleigh Durham, The Dish in Dallas, Central Market Cooking Schools in Texas, Marshall Fields Cooking School in Chicago, The Kansas City Restaurant Association, Cooks of Crocus Hill in St. Paul/Minn., Chef's Gallery in Stillwater MN, the Cook's Nook in McPherson KS, the Culinary Center of Kansas City, KitchenArt in Indiana, Viking Culinary Center in Nashville, Roth Concept Center in Kansas City, and Smoke N Fire in Kansas City.

“I’m a gadget freak, too.” Adds Adler. “Grill woks, all kinds of skewers, flavored woods and wood pellets from alder and orange to sassafras and mulberry and everything in between, charcoal chimney, wood planks, microplane zesters, fresh ginger graters, herb grill racks, and even the stovetop smoker. Of course outside there’s a kamado, bullet shaped water smoker, Cookshack Smoker Oven, 40,000 BTU MHP gas grill, and the ever reliable Weber kettle charcoal grill.”

Adler's writing career includes articles in Cooking Pleasures, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Great Grilling, and Scooby Doo (a food magazine for parents and children). She has also written the barbecue book review columns for On the Grill, The BBQer and the National Barbecue News.

She has been a spokesperson for Pig Out Publications, the National Barbecue Association, and The Catfish Institute. She also develops recipes for food companies and is co-author of the Smart Pan Cookbook with Judith Fertig for a new temperature sensor skillet. She and Judith have both appeared on the Better Homes & Garden TV and the DIY network's special grill shows for summer of 2005.

Karen is a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier (Past President-of the Kansas City Chapter), International Association of Culinary Professionals, Hearth Patio & Barbecue Association, Awards of Excellence Chairman and past Vice-President for the National Barbecue Association, Slow Foods board member for the Kansas City Convivium, board member of the National Barbecue Hall Of Fame and Museum, and founder of the BBQ ('Que) Queens.

Special honors include being an invited judge at The Cleveland RibsFest and the American Royal Invitational Barbecue Championship, guest chef at the Seattle Grillfest, guest chef at the American Royal Barbecue Contest, guest chef at the Traverse City Epicurean Festival, and featured cookbook author with fellow BBQ Queen Judith Fertig at Charlie Trotter’s To Go in Chicago. As a member of the Kansas City Barbeque Society, Adler holds the honoree degree of M.B. (Masters of Barbecue) from its prestigious Greasehouse University!

Judith Fertig

According to food writer and cookbook author Judith M. Fertig, "Food tells a story that appeals to all the senses." In her newspaper and magazine articles, cookbooks, cooking classes, and special event appearances, she brings to life our shared and delectable love of food.

In copy writing and recipe development work for food corporations and commodity boards, her involvement has helped clients reap a 200 percent return on investment.

Freelancing for magazines and newspapers, Fertig’s food articles have appeared in the January 2004 issue of Cooking Light, November 2004 issue of Vegetarian Times, and the February 2005 and December 2003 issues of Better Homes & Gardens. Her work has appeared internationally in Cooking Light, Saveur, Better Homes & Gardens, Mary Emmerling's Home Companion, Cooking Pleasures, Country Living, Kansas City Home Design, The New York Times, The London Sunday Times, the former Taste Magazine in London, and The Kansas City Star, for which she writes a weekly column.

Fertig's professional culinary training includes La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine when it was still in Paris and the Cordon Bleu in London. She gives cooking classes across the country and has appeared nationally on radio and television.

Her newest cookbook is The BBQ Queens’ Big Book of Barbecue, co-authored with Karen Adler (Harvard Common Press, Spring 2005). About All-American Desserts: 400 Star-Spangled, Razzle-Dazzle Recipes for America's Best-Loved Desserts (The Harvard Common Press, 2003), Publisher's Weekly decreed, "For the cook whose shelves are rife with books on contemporary cuisine, this book—think of it as an enhanced Betty Crocker recipe cookbook—is well worth adding to the shelf." Fertig's Prairie Home Breads (2001) was chosen as one of the 10 best cookbooks of the year by the Chicago Tribune. Prairie Home Cooking (1999) was nominated for both the IACP and James Beard Awards, the culinary equivalent of the Oscar and Golden Globe Awards in the film industry.