`SUBLIME' WAY TO SMOKE.

Although their back yard may be as close as some people get to the great outdoors, they can replicate the savory taste of campfire cooking with new-fangled home-smoking equipment.

But most camping trips never have featured such dinnertime fare as Old English Spiced Brisket or Tandoori-Style Chicken, two of the offerings in ``Sublime Smoke'' (Harvard Common Press; $16.95). The soft-cover book by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison advises how to select a smoker - electric, gas or coal-powered - and provides a globe-trotting range of 200 recipes that help you use it.

The brisket, for example, is coated overnight with a dry rub seasoned with salt, brown sugar and juniper berries. Then it's smoked about five hours, with vinegar added during the last two hours to enhance the pungent flavor.

Like the Indian version of tandoori chicken, the Jamisons' recipe starts with a marinade of yogurt, lemon and spices. Rather than being cooked in a clay oven, however, the poultry is smoked at low heat, allowing it to absorb the tang.

The smoker isn't only for meat and poultry, however. ``Sublime Smoke'' has a chapter on appetizers, dips and salsas; another on soups; and separate categories for beef, poultry, pork, seafood, vegetables and accompaniments.

Most of the book's recipes feature a dry rub - which forms a tasty crust on the finished dish - or pastes and marinades, which help keep lean meats moist during the smoking process.

The Jamisons recommend that most dishes be smoked at 225 degrees to 250 degrees F - hot enough to destroy harmful bacteria, yet low enough to allow ample time for the food to absorb the smoky flavor.

SOURCE: - Barbara Jones