Biker Billy's Freeway-A-Fire Cookbook: Life's Too Short to Eat Dull Food

With the help of a public-access TV show, a Web site and a first cookbook (Biker Billy Cooks with Fire), Hufnagle, aka Biker Billy, has achieved notoriety. This bearded motorcycle maniac who cooks spiced-up dishes in a New Jersey garage when he's not tinkering with his Harley is a strict vegetarian. Despite his experience on the road, Biker Billy is a pedestrian author. To get to the meat of these 150 or so veggie recipes, one must get past the embarrassing names of the dishes. There's Meany Rotini, Kooky Couscous, Rude Oily Pasta and the none-too-subtle Kick Asparagus Soup. A short lead-in paragraph explains the reasoning behind the seasoning for each concoction: ""You'll howl like a banshee when you eat these burgers."" If readers want spice, it's here in spades, though too many times the recipes are just familiar favorites with a pepper thrown in (Potato Tornado, for example, is a simple potato casserole plus a dried habanero). There is a small bounty of Asian dishes that are truly risky and creative. Nuclear Potato Salad combines habaneros, honey, peanut butter and yogurt, and Hong Kong Bean Curd is fried in butter, pepper and ginger and crowned with watercress. Such unexpected turns help compensate for a sometimes tiring ride. (Jan.)