Located in Fort Worth, Texas, The Chisholm Club is an upscale restaurant with rustic decor created by cowboy-turned-chef Grady Spears. Named after the Chisholm Trail cattle drives that dispersed vast herds of Texas longhorns north into Kansas, where they were loaded onto trains and transported to hungry markets in the East and Midwest.

In a metaphorical sense, Spears' latest cookbook is a sort of trail drive, corraling his hearty gourmet cowboy dishes into a large format, richly illustrated volume and sharing it with cooks and chefs and would-be cowpokes far beyond the Texas borders.

The full-page, 9 x 11 sepia-tone Erwin E. Smith (1886-1947) photographs scattered throughout the book wonderfully capture the lifestyle and spirit of the working cowboy. By themselves, they make this handome volume worth collecting or putting on display. Juxtaposed with contemporary food photography by Ralph Lauer, historical background essays by June Naylor, and Spears' recipes, they combine to make a full meal of a book.