Energetic account of a comedienne’s mishaps in the kitchen as she prepares meals for family and friends.
Calamities in the kitchen for a newbie chef.
Rafferty, former writer for The Soup, brings yet another snarky voice to the myriad of memoirs that revolve around culinary experiments and dinner parties by inexperienced cooks. What distinguishes this author from others is her insatiable appetite for wine, her indomitable spirit in the face of catastrophe, her resolute desire to please everyone and her offbeat sense of humor. Rafferty wittily pokes fun at herself and her attempts to pull off Martha Stewart–type meals in a tiny apartment hardly big enough for one, let alone seven guests who often don't know the difference between good and bad wine. Runny gravy, watery polenta and a cranky boyfriend running on empty are all included in a hodgepodge of memories. Attacking each meal with gusto, Rafferty discusses entertaining at some of the most important food moments of the year, Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as preparing a dinner for well-known restaurant owners and volunteering to cater a baby shower for 100 guests. She yearns to satisfy appetites and create memories that extend beyond the frazzled nerves (before and after the meal) and the occasional outbreak of tears. For Rafferty, "preparing food is a meditation," even if something goes wrong and "the food sucks." Recipes at the end of each chapter enhance the narrative, but some readers may find more fluff than sustenance as they tag along for the ride.
Energetic account of a comedienne’s mishaps in the kitchen as she prepares meals for family and friends.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-01143-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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