Dishing with the Kitchen Virgin

Book excerpt: "She's like a modern-day, southern-fried Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry." --Booklist Is the brand sticker still affixed to your sauté pan? Is your wok used solely as a receptacle for potato chips? Does your blender only see the light of day when Baccardi or Tequila is involved? If so, then welcome to the Kitchen Virgin Club. But don't despair--you're in the illustrious company of Susan Reinhardt: syndicated columnist, spokeswoman for skewed southern bellehood. . .and one truly lousy cook. In this cleaver-sharp new collection of food stories, culinary missteps, and recipes from yummy to yucky, Reinhardt comes clean--way clean--as the unapologetic product of a long line of talented, fascinating, funny women who have regular brushes with homicide by pot roast. From "The Toaster Oven is a Bee-otch" to "When Road Kill Makes it to Mikasa," as well as the titular tale of the socialite who shaved her fuzzy greens, these stranger-than-fiction accounts will have you laughing until milk spews out of your nose. And for those inspired to graduate from Kitchen Virgin to Kitchen 'Tute, there's "Bone Apple Cheat!"-- Reinhardt's own shortcut-to-real-food recipes. So next time you're tempted to make Taco Bell your last (okay, first) resort, crack open this book, have a laugh. . .and get cookin'. "So engaging. . .so honest. . .will make you laugh out loud." --The Asheville Citizen-Times "Like hanging out with your bluntest, most mischievous friend, the one who never fails to crack you up." --Chicago Sun-Times "Funny and touching. . .Reinhardt is not afraid to put it all out there." --The Pilot (N.C.) "Susan Reinhardt takes the naked, honest truth and sets it on fire in a blaze of laughter. . .will have you holding your sides the whole time." --Laurie Notaro, Autobiography of a Fat Girl "She can break your heart in one sentence and leave you laughing till you're breathless in the next."--Julie Cannon, True Love & Homegrown Tomatoes Susan Reinhardt is a syndicated columnist and feature writer whose work has appeared all over the world in major newspapers such as the Washington Post, London Daily Mirror, Newsday, and other Tribune Media and Gannett publications. Reinhardt has won dozens of awards for her writing, including several Best of Gannett honors and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. A long-time volunteer fund-raiser for Hospice, the United Way, the American Lymphoma and Leukemia Society, the PTO and other worthwhile and not so worthwhile causes, Reinhardt is also a proud member of the Not Quite Write Book Club, a group of ten women who drink wine and pretend to act literary. A true Daughter of the South, Susan Reinhardt was born in South Carolina, was raised in Georgia, and currently makes her home in Asheville, North Carolina, the jewel city of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is married to jazz musician Stuart Reinhardt and has two adorable children. She still calls her mama every night.