Having bought a Masterbuilt Electric Smoker, I figured this would be a good starting point for this year's experimentation with the art of smoking meats and other foods. It is very hard to look up what one wants to cook as there is no alphabetized index. There is a table of contents in the front. However, beef, pork, and lamb recipes and cuts are all mixed together higgilty-piggilty. Very frustrating. Very few recipes are specific to the electric smoker. There are no illustrations or photos. The type face is quite small and hard to read. Make sure to mark interesting recipes with a port-it or book mark, as you may never find it again. As far as directions or helpful hints for using the smoker, there are a couple pages in the very front of the book. There are some nice rubs, etc mentioned in most recipes. On the whole, I'm sure I will use this resource, but not often, as it is not user friendly at all. ( )