If You Can’t Take the Heat Review: Geraldine DeRuiter’s Funny, Furious Look at Food and Feminism

Read time: 5 minutes

🎧 Listened in audio | 📢 Narrated by Geraldine DeRuiter
⏱ Duration: 10 hours | Genre: Non Fiction
🏷️ Publisher name: Crown

Book Blurb:

James Beard Award–winning blogger Geraldine DeRuiter of The Everywhereist tells the story behind her viral essay on Mario Batali’s apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations against him, which included a recipe for cinnamon rolls. She made the recipe and wrote about misogyny in the food world. The essay was read millions of times, praised by figures from Martha Stewart to Pete Wells, and brought a wave of threats her way. Through funny, sharp essays, she also covers how meal-planning for the apocalypse tamed her anxiety and why she embraced her hanger, plus how a negative restaurant review became an international incident.

Let’s talk about the book:

This book turned out to be completely different from what I expected. I thought it would be about the food industry and feminism within it (hotel kitchens and that sort of thing). Instead it’s a holistic look at everything related to food, and at how women still suffer even after being the primary “food makers” in homes across the world.

Across 16 chapters, Geraldine DeRuiter takes us from her very first fascination with food (and no, it’s not a fancy dish, be real) to her most horrible restaurant experiences, one of which was, interestingly enough, at a Michelin-starred restaurant. And of course there’s the cinnamon rolls: the recipe Mario Batali inexplicably tucked into his apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations against him, which DeRuiter actually went ahead and made. The essay that came out of it got read millions of times and earned her a pile of death threats for her trouble, which tells you everything about the world she’s writing from. I did the 10-hour stretch in one go because the narration was so engaging.

I could relate to so many things she mentioned: the wait staff who would refuse to take payment from me and would only let my husband pay, or people who used to be such an integral part of someone’s life becoming total strangers later (that one wasn’t food-related, but I resonated with it very deeply). I also loved her point about how readers assume they know so much about her just from reading her books, when that isn’t who she is as a person. It really does shift your perspective when you stop to think about it. And her political views are hilariously on my side of things, so I could relate to those comments too (yes, Geraldine, I hear you and feel with you).

This is one unexpectedly funny, relatable, and simply un-put-downable work of non-fiction that will remain in my head and heart for a while. The relationship with food that she has is something I share, and I’m extremely glad I came across this book.

Would I recommend it?

If You Can’t Take the Heat by Geraldine DeRuiter is not the book about restaurant kitchens I expected, and I’m very glad about that. It’s a funny and furious look at everything food touches, from the author’s first fascination with it to a horrible meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant to the cinnamon rolls that started a firestorm. I did all ten hours of the audiobook in one go because she narrates it herself and it just pulls you in. If you want nonfiction that is relatable and unexpectedly hilarious, pick this one up.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

5 book recommendations

• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain If the restaurant kitchen angle is what you were expecting from this one, this is the classic behind-the-scenes look, told with a lot of attitude.

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• Heartburn by Nora Ephron A novel with recipes sitting right inside a very funny, very angry story, so it reads like a fiction cousin to DeRuiter’s cinnamon roll saga.

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• Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton A chef’s memoir from a woman who ran her own kitchen, which speaks straight to the women-in-food side of DeRuiter’s book.

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• Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl Reichl’s memoir of her years running Gourmet magazine gives you another woman’s view from inside the food world.

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• Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci More funny food storytelling on audio, and like DeRuiter’s it’s narrated by the author himself.

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Your Seat at the Table

Have you read or listened to If You Can’t Take the Heat yet? Did the author’s narration work for you the way it did for me? And what’s the one food that takes you straight back to somebody’s kitchen? Drop it in the comments. If you’ve got a food memoir or a funny nonfiction audiobook on your list, tell me that too. I’m always looking for the next one.

Book Links block

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