Reviews for Secret Suppers: Rogue Chefs and Underground Restaurants in Warehouses, Townhouses, Open Fields, and Everywhere in Between

The average rating for Secret Suppers: Rogue Chefs and Underground Restaurants in Warehouses, Townhouses, Open Fields, and Everywhere in Between based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-16 00:00:00 Zezinho Welter At its best, this book is like certain frothy movies made in the 1930s for the contemporary US audience -- a pleasant diversion from everyday cares, featuring prosperous people, apparently not worrying too much about the future, indulging themselves in an endearing manner. At its worst, this book made you want to take up knitting in the shade of the guillotine. Although an easy topic for ridicule, well-heeled foodies are people engaged in a quest for the beautiful, so maybe they should be cut some slack. As it is, the author engages in several cheap shots against people who welcomed her into their homes or tried to engage her in friendly conversation, apparently to amuse us with their banality. Her editor should have told her to knock it off. New topic: factual errors in non-fiction books are like cockroaches on your kitchen counter. If you see one, you can be pretty sure there are others you can't see. In this case, the author writes: "...he's become the go-to mixologist (the fancy new word among foodies for bar chef...". A few seconds' Internet searching would have yielded the information that the first documented usage of this word was in 1948. The author was interviewed on "The Splendid Table" of 28 November 2009.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-10-28 00:00:00 Phil Kos This has a lot of great recipes and lovely descriptions of the underground dinners going on. There's even a chapter about Creche in Seattle! But I was quickly bored to tears reading about people eating, so I skimmed after the first two chapters. Em, there was a recipe in the first or second chapter that I think you'll like, but I've already returned the book and have no idea what it was anymore. Yay for helpfulness!