Weekend Cooking: Eat Your Feelings by Heather Whaley

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Happy New Year to everyone -- may your 2011 be full of good friends, good health, and good food.

Eat Your Feelings: Recipes for Self-Loathing by Heather Whaley showed up in my mailbox this week. It's a fun and funny cookbook that is just perfect for the day after indulging on New Year's Eve. The paperback edition is out this month.

As the introduction says, this

is not simply a cookbook. In these pages you're not going to find some tired old recipes and tedious instructions. . . . On the contrary, dear reader, what you are holding is a book about eating. And not just regular eating but eating when you are on a mission, likely a solo mission.

The recipe titles guide you to the right food for your mood. Here are a few examples: Worst Date Ever Nutty Cheese Ball, Foreclosure Fiesta, MIL from Hell Taco Bell, Bad Botox Bolognese, Stir-Fry for Stretch Marks, and Midlife Crisis Rib Eye. Feeling disappointed? Just turn to the index and you'll find twelve recipes to choose from.

At the back of the book you'll find lists of books and songs and places and activities to enhance or soothe your feelings of self-loathing.

Each recipe begins with a black and white photograph to fit the situation and a ingredient list that usually contains a surprise (see the recipe that follows).

You Saw a Group of Girls You Went to High School with at a Restaurant and You Were Their Waitress Chipotle Beans and Rice

You will need:

• 1 X-Acto knife
• 1 match
• 1/2 cup pinto beans
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup rice
• 1 teaspoon canned chipotle chili in adobo sauce

Taking an old yearbook, carefully use X-Acto knife to slash photos of Lisa, Sophie, and Beth.* Leave Jeanne's face alone, as she was at least nice enough to leave a big tip, but the others deserve to be removed from the yearbook altogether, especially Lisa for the way she kept talking about how you were her "server" and then complained about not only the food but also your attitude. After removal from yearbook, use match to burn Lisa's photo.

Gently boil the beans in stock until almost soft. Add rice and chili and cook for 20-30 minutes until rice is tender. While cooking, consider working at a theme restaurant, like Planet Hollywood, because if someone you know shows up, it is an open question who should be more embarrassed. Enjoy beans with some hot sauce, if desired.

* Names have not been changed to protect now middle-age man girls in humdrum lives.

Two other recipes I liked were Cereal Snack for Aging Potheads (complete with a trip to the local food co-op) and Failed the GED Creamed Spinach for Idiots (which requires adult supervision and offers some career advice).

Eat Your Feelings at an Indie

Eat Your Feelings at Powell's

Eat Your Feelings at Book Depository
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Published by Penguin / Plume, 2011
ISBN-13: 9780452296589
YTD: 1Challenges: FoodieRating: B-
Source: Review (see review policy)
Copyright © cbl for Beth Fish Reads, all rights reserved (see review policy)