Comfort Food (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Gus Simpson adored birthday cake..." (more)
Key Phrases: cooking with gusto, kate jacobs, culinary producer, Gus Simpson, Carmen Vega, Alan Holt (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jacobs follows The Friday Night Knitting Club with another multigenerational tale, this time on the foodie circuit. Popular Cooking with Gusto! host Augusta Gus Simpson, a widowed mother of two adult daughters who's about to turn 50, is tiring of her many obligations, which include throwing an annual birthday bash for herself. That trial pales, however, in comparison with the introduction of saucy former beauty queen and YouTube star Carmen Vega as Gus's cohost: Carmen is younger, hotter and very tight with the boss. It's soon apparent on the set that this new situation isn't working, so the two are packed off, along with a forgettable cast of secondaries, to a corporate team-building weekend, complete with New Age guide. When the resort's head chef calls in sick, a team-building opportunity presents itself. Jacobs gives Gus a reasonable love interest and provides the requisite bickering and backstabbing, but the foodie moments lack passion, and the results yield no stars. (May)
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Review

PRAISE FOR THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB

“The book’s great—worth reading now.”
--Glamour

“If you are looking for an inviting group of gals to spend a few winter evenings with, pull up your afghan (you knitted it yourself, right?) and snuggle in with The Friday Night Knitting Club. Kate Jacobs’ breezy first novel reads like Steel Magnolias set in Manhattan. . . . Club makes you yearn for yarn, even if you’re not a knitter.” --Publishers Weekly

“Without resorting to stereotypical personalities or over-the-top plot twists . . . Jacobs does something unexpected—she changes things up, and [Club] goes from being a good book to being a really great story.” --Marie Claire

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1 edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399154655
• ISBN-13: 978-0739496404
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #80,270 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even better than Friday Night Knitting Club, May 8, 2008

By	Tyler Hewson (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews

I was a HUGE fan of Kate Jacobs first book, Friday Night Knitting Club, so I was a little iffy about whether I wanted to read this book at all. Sometimes the second one is not as good as the first, you know? But I bought it and read it in one afternoon straight. It's actually even better than Friday Night--don't want to spoil that ending so I'll just say that this ending is very different--and the characters are just as much fun. It reminded me alot of my own family and there were some romances that were fun and real and not cliche'd. Kate Jacobs also puts in plenty of yummy descriptions of food and cooking that seriously made me hungry as I read it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who liked her first book or to anyone who just enjoys a great read about food and family and life.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delicious examination of relationships, aging, and the power of food, June 30, 2008

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Kate Jacobs's debut novel, THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB, was a word-of-mouth bestseller, catching on not only among avid knitters but also among fans of women's literature in general. It's now even set to become a feature film starring Julia Roberts, which will release sometime in 2009.

With her second novel, COMFORT FOOD, Jacobs again delves into the lives and loves of a group of interconnected friends and family. This time, however, the ending is decidedly less weepy and more, well, comforting.

Augusta (Gus) Simpson is a familiar face to millions of Americans. She's the star of the longest-running series on the Cooking Channel, "Cooking with Gusto," and her face adorns not only countless television sets but also her own line of cookware and other household products. But as Gus's fabulous lifestyle (her TV show is filmed out of the spacious kitchen in her Westchester manor home) marches on, so does time --- and Gus is staring 50 squarely in the face. Is it possible that this energetic, hot mama has left her youth behind her?

It seems that Gus's bosses at the Cooking Channel are asking themselves the same questions. With a roster of new, hip television chefs and a handful of new extreme theme programs designed to appeal to ever-younger viewers, perhaps Gus's show seems a little, well, old. Can Gus and her friends at the network figure out a new format that will preserve it from cancellation?

For Gus, the answer to her problems is right under her nose --- at her kitchen table, in fact. When an unexpected cancellation leaves Gus scrambling for show guests, she recruits her friends and family to serve as co-hosts and sous chefs, with humorous, and delicious, results. This accidental pairing of Gus's closest friends and family --- including her twenty-something daughters Sabrina and Aimee, Sabrina's ex-boyfriend Troy, and Gus's painfully reclusive neighbor Hannah --- with aspiring Cooking Channel host (and former Miss Spain) Carmen Vega leads to a new hit show...and plenty of tension. As the guests come together at Gus's table, tempers flare, tensions mount, and there's plenty of time for everyone to discover not only delicious food but also new truths about themselves.

At times, COMFORT FOOD can seem like a glimpse into a particularly fractious group therapy session, as sisters bicker with each other (and their mother), as former lovers try to become friends, as jealous co-workers negotiate professional boundaries, and as at least one woman tries to overcome her past mistakes. Jacobs successfully balances these somewhat tiresome exchanges, however, by offering numerous flashbacks into each character's past, providing much-needed character development that can help gain readers' sympathy for these sometimes prickly individuals.

Gus herself is a winning character, and readers will be cheering for this mature, lively heroine to achieve both professional and personal success --- which may even include love, an ingredient that's been missing from Gus's life since her husband's death years before. Happy endings and a mid-life shot at romance will leave readers of COMFORT FOOD satisfied but looking forward to another helping of feel-good women's fiction from Kate Jacobs.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very average! , July 16, 2008

By	Janice (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

Kate Jacob's "Comfort Food" revolved around Gus, a popular TV show host for the Cooking Channel. Despite that Gus's program was the longest running series on the channel, the number of viewers had gone down, and Gus' bosses begin to wonder if Gus is too old for the program. Gus, was afterall in her fifties. In order to spice up her series, Gus was paired with a former beauty pageant from Spain who will join her in her cooking show. Her working life was obviously not going well, and even her personal life was problematic. Gus' two adult daughters were complete opposite of one another. Aimee, an Economist, was serious, studious, and felt she was neglected due to the neediness of her younger sister, Sabrina. Sabrina had commitment problems and despite many engagements, she's still unmarried, and unable to commit to one person. To make her life worse, the producers decided to put her entire family, and a few others (including Sabrina's ex-boyfriend, Gus's friend who is a recluse).

This was an okay read for me. The pace of the book was a little slow for me, The book was fairly well-written, but unfortunately not very engaging and rather predictable too. It wasn't one of those books where you can't put down. If you are a huge fan of Kate Jacob, this may be for you. But if you are looking for a more interesting read, there are definitely better ones out there. Very average!