Customer Reviews

Dishing with the Kitchen Virgin

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was thrilled to see a new book by Susan. Even though I know my way around a Cuisinart, I can certainly relate to her wacky culinary mishaps and last minute improvisations. Her concoctions and calamities crack me up, and remind me fondly of growing up in the South and the surprises awaiting us at the dinner table. Reinhardt's recipe for humor always leave me wanting more. What a gem she is!

I've gone from a Kitchen Virgin to a full blown Kitchen Strumpet over the years and can appreciate every single one of chapters of this book! Susan gives her hilarious take on various kitchen mishaps and experiments and the headaches (and sometimes labor pains!) involved with getting a decent meal on the table.
As a "foodie" I thought this book was a great example of how nearly everyone's personal history and memories are all tied to food and family in some way. This book felt like a big hug as I was transported back to my grandma's kitchen, helping to prepare Christmas dinner....complete with LOTS of belly laughing!

Susan Rhinehardts' latest is the best yet. She is real competition for Irma bombeck and Dave Barry. I have met Susan personally and can attest she is just as zany in person
Tom Nielsen

Susan Reinhardt has brilliantly written an engaging collection of her Southern family's amusing culinary stories. Each hilariously titled chapter is an entertaining story about food, and pertinent recipes are included. Many family secrets of Southern-style cooking are divulged. She also shares her 10 "semisuccessful" tips to help the cook and her guests survive a major holiday. Ms. Reinhardt is a talented storyteller whose homespun humor produced many laugh-out-loud moments. Written in a delightful folksy style, I was truly captivated. Her culinary troubles were certainly easy to relate to, as I've made many cooking mistakes myself! These stories remind me that many of our fondest memories are of sharing a meal with a table of loved ones. I really loved this utterly charming book and I highly recommend it.

THis was so laugh out loud funny, I had been reading her columns for years and took a chance her book may be as well and I was happy it was hilarious............GREAT STUFF!

"Once you've done a meal, you have to be dead to get out of another..."

That's just one of the many wise(-cracking) pieces of advice Susan Reinhardt "dishes out" in her new book "Dishing With the Kitchen Virgin." This new collection of essays stands up beautifully quirky along with her first two: "Not Tonight Honey, Wait Til I'm a Size 6," and "Don't Sleep With a Bubba Unless Your Eggs are in Wheelchairs."

I knew when I opened the cover of Reinhardt's book that I would snicker, laugh out loud, and maybe even raise an eyebrow at her brash and bold outlook on life as a wife, mother, writer, and Working Woman, and I was not disappointed. But, if I expected to come away with some really great recipes, well, then that's another matter altogether. For Reinhardt is no Julia Child (or even a Rachael Ray, by God!)--and she readily and tongue-in-cheekily admits it.

Ms. Reinhardt offers up a few, er, recipes? from some of her favorite cooks, such as: George Motz's Broiled Skunk (Catch one skunk, two skunks if more than two people are to eat; Skin, clean, and remove insides..."), and Hazel Hollifield's "Easy Collards with Hog Jowls (Simmer til Grandma can chew with her false teeth...), to ideas for Tom Cruise's new baby's, (oh.my.good.god.), placenta: (Placenta and Polenta, Placenta and Penne Pasta, Placenta Pate); or her own family-pleasing favorites known as "eatin and cheatin foods" or "Bone Appe-Cheat," such as, "Chef Boyardee Rocks" (one can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli...cheese or beef...open can and pour into a tiny and adorable baking dish...), "Salmon That Almost Killed My Dog" (place salmon, filets or steaks, in a pan. Take a fork and stab them...).

If you are looking for more laughs (and ancient family secrets that span the ages of all time and all families) than culinary masterpieces, then pick up Reinhardt's "Dishing With the Kitchen Virgin." And you never know, you just may find that all-time family recipe you've been waiting for to adorn the family table. For although Reinhardt may offer up some rather, um, interesting takes on gastronomy, she also understands the life of a busy mother who has stretched herself thin to accommodate the demands heaped upon tired old shoulders. Tucked within are tried and true old time Busy Mom favorites we've all either eaten or tried ourselves, even if we aren't as brave as Reinhardt is to admit it. However, this reviewer will pass on the skunk and placenta, thank you very much.

I can hardly wait to see what Reinhardt comes up with next!


(review first on Roses & Thorns)

I had already read this book and given it away. It is Laugh out loud funny. It came to me in excellent condition, and now I have a copy of my own.,

Susan Reinhardt, a self-professed Crock-Pot queen, shares her hilarious essays on culinary competitions. How does someone who dwells in "The Land of Unopened Wedding Gifts" survive in a world of Southern covered-dish suppers? Susan searches for the answer while dishing out advice on everything from CWI (cooking while intoxicated) to ways men can get more action in the bedroom (turn on a range to turn on a woman).

From her tales of road-kill eating relatives to her confessions of serving collard greens as long as snakes, Susan's stories will have you howling for second helpings . . . though most likely not from her stove.

Diana Estill, author of Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road

When you read the pages of DISHING WITH THE KITCHEN VIRGIN, you can almost hear the drawl in Susan's voice. If you are looking for some light reading, you need this book. As she writes on page 4, "I decided to write this book--a wild collection of food-related stories, culinary missteps and dining disasters including recipes at the end of each chapter--for my fellow cooking virgins, women who, if given a winning lottery ticket, would hire a personal chef first and foremost."

Susan is a master at getting a laugh with a slight twist to her sentences. For some light-hearted entertainment, I recommend this book.

This is the greatest book by this Southern Lady - I hated when I came to the end, and could not put the book down. Someone please wake me when she writes another funny book. Loved it.