We're smack dab in the middle of deer season and hunters across North Georgia are taking their fresh kill to the local deer cooler - or butchering the animal themselves.

Which means there's a lot of game coming into kitchens, too.

And even though deer meat - called venison - is wild game, it can be just as tasty as a steak or a beef pot roast if prepared properly.

"Venison has a very bad reputation and it proves to be totally false," said Gary Grossman, author of "A Bone to Pick: Everyone's Guide to Gourmet Venison" and a professor at the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry. "I've never eaten a deer that had bad meat in Georgia ... the meat is lean and flavorful, and so it's very healthy; it's low in cholesterol."

Grossman's cookbook focuses on venison because he loves the idea of shooting and butchering your own meat.

"I guess that to me is from a spiritual end; it completes the cycle of life," Grossman said.

So after the excitement of the kill, hunters either do their own butchering or head to a place like Southers Deer Cooler in Murrayville to get their choice cuts of meat.

Matt Christoph, owner of Southers Deer Cooler, said cube steak is the most popular cut for venison.

"They will take the tenderloin and cube it and make it like a country fried steak," Christoph said. "The most standard cuts would be cube steak, tenderloin and ground meat."

Cooking the venison roast in a slow cooker is popular too, Christoph added, as is cooking the tenderloin on the grill.

But as simple as grilling venison is, folks have to be quick about it, he said.

"We'll cook up here sometimes on the grill, and we'll take the whole tenderloin and wrap it in bacon," he said. "I don't have a certain recipe that I use, we kind of do whatever."

Want an added kick? Christoph mentioned adding cream cheese to the center of the tenderloin - wrapped in bacon - also is tasty.

Larry Davies, a sales associate at Shuler's Great Outdoors in Gainesville, added that marinade is important to the taste of the venison.

"I like to take a tenderloin and marinade it in Italian dressing, slice it into an inch or inch-and-a-quarter chunks, wrap it in bacon and grill it," he said. "Then I use the ground (venison) in spaghetti sauce all the time. It's just lean meat, it doesn't really - if you prepare it in sauces and stuff like that - you really can't taste the wildness of it."

If you're not a fan of that gamey flavor, there are also other ways to take the edge off it before cooking.

"You can do that by soaking it in ice water and draining it several times over the course of several days," Davies said.

Grossman said hanging the venison after butchering the meat helps with the flavor, too.

"You let it hang in a refrigerated space for a week, but there are commercial places that will let you hang," he said. "What hanging does is it allows enzymes to break down some of the muscle tissue and some of the proteins in the meat, so it improves the flavor and it also makes it tender."

Most any part of a deer is able to be eaten, but the most popular meat portion is what hunters call the backstrap.

"It is the loin," Grossman said. "They eat the backstrap and they eat the muscles in the legs; the sirloin is there, too. The whole animal is edible - not just edible but the whole animal can be prepared in a way that you have great dishes.

For example, he said, the shoulders can be cooked as shoulder roast

"You can use everything," Grossman said. "It's just like going to Kroger in a sense. You buy chuck roast to make a pot roast ... you have to know a little bit about the different cuts of meat."

Grossman said he is in favor of butchering the meat at home because you can "separate out all the good muscles. In my opinion it's worth learning how to do it yourself and it's not that hard."

The self-proclaimed chef shared a few recipes from his book to show how easily and well venison can be prepared.

"The recipes don't take hours; they aren't super fancy," Grossman said. "I even use canned beans. ... It's designed for working families that have kids and can't spend all of Saturday cooking one dish."

The Venison Minestrone soup, Venison Stroganoff and Venison Tenderloins with Mustard Cream Sauce all sound gourmet but are easily put together at home.

The Venison Minestrone soup uses several types of beans with the venison and a variety of vegetables and seasonings to create the popular Italian soup. The stroganoff takes on a more distinct flavor with the venison, and if you want to add more interest to the venison tenderloins, Grossman tops the meat with a creamy mustard sauce.

"Another thing that is important is these recipes will work with any meat, especially chicken," Grossman said.

Want a copy of the book? Click here.