Chef Tim Byres of Smoke inks deal for cookbook with Rizzoli

Chef Tim Byres has signed with publisher Rizzoli New York to write and produce his first cookbook. Byres says the as-yet unnamed cookbook is penned for a Spring, 2013, release.

Byres, Food & Wine Magazine’s favorite southwest chef, is the chef and co-owner of Smoke and the just-opened Chicken Scratch and Foundry Bar. Rizzoli is considered a top-tier publisher (they’ve published notable cookbooks, including one from Alain Ducasse and the new revisionist tome from the Mansion on Turtle Creek).

“I’ve been working on this cookbook since last year,” Byres told me. “I want to demystify things people think they can’t do themselves, like canning, pickling, jarring, preserving, and cooking from scratch. Then I’ll also show you where it’s okay to take a short-cut when you’re cooking from scratch.” For example, Byres says he’ll include a recipe for a spice rub that mimics the smokey accents of a wood fire, “in case someone doesn’t have the time to cook over a fire.”

“A main focus will be wood-fired cooking and making from-scratch dishes with American roots. But this is definitely not going to be a barbecue book,” Byres insists. “That’s not what Smoke is about.”

Additionally, look for chapters on recreating a backyard garden. Says Byres: “I’ve learned so much from our garden (at Smoke) that I have a lot to say about  how to do it right and ways it  can go wrong.”

He has more to cluck about, too. Byres admitted he’s scratched (sorry, couldn’t resist) down his favorite Dallas area restaurants for the iPhone app Chef’s Feed, which is organized by US city into “chapters” in which local chefs name their favorite restos in their city. (There are about a dozen other Dallas chefs contributing, and I’ll tell you about them shortly).