Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradel

(No Spoilers Here...)

I will tell you what I didn't realize about this book before I started reading it. It's really a book of short stories.  Maybe I missed that in the description. I expected to pick up a book about a child raised by a chef and learning the nuances of food and following that path.  It was sort of that, but sort of not.

I want to try to write a review here that does have any spoilers, because there are several spoilers to be shared, especially in the first few "chapters."  (I put chapters in quotes, because they are not really chapters as much as short stories.)

I was fortunate enough to meet this author at an author event recently.  I had never heard of his books before that but I loved the premise of this one and his newer one.  After hearing him speak, he was just such an endearing person and I think that made me enjoy this book even more.  I could really see his personality come through in the story.

So this is a book about Eva, the girl with the "once in a generation" palate and how food becomes the center of her life. That being said, several of the stories in this book only have Eva as a small character.  So you really get to know the other characters that made an impact in her life through the stories with a final story that sort of brings them all together. 

The best way I can describe this story and these characters is quirky.  There are some really random excerpts that are described so vividly they are almost shocking.  I imagine the author getting a little kick out of himself for throwing these in.  Here are some examples of this:

• In story titled Sweet Pepper Jelly we get to learn more about Eva's cousin, Bracque.  Without spoiling anything, Bracque is having hallucinations where misspelled versions of "sweet pepper jelly" keep appearing in random spots for her.  This story culminates with Bracque gorging herself on a sweet pepper jelly and having a very public (and vividly described) vomiting scene after eating all of that. 
• In the story titled Golden Bantam, we meet a new bunch of characters who get together for dinner parties. Here the food talk is definitely taken up a notch.  But the random excerpt is sort of a very brief (like 4 sentence) interlude where it is randomly mentioned that one of these random characters is killed when they are hit by a car. The description of what happened is so brief, but definitely shocking.  
• In the story titled Bars, we learn about Pat and her peanut butter bars.  At one point, when Pat is really flummoxed by these young chefs and their locally sourced and homemade ingredients, her teenage delinquent son says "It all looks the same in the toilet in the morning." 

It's these little nuances that really bring you back to face the truth that this is a man writing a book that is being geared towards women.  When he spoke at the event I mentioned, he said how his mother inspired his writing and how although she passed away before his first book was published, he still feels like he is writing to her.  He said this may be while the majority of his reading audience is women aged 50-75! Ha!  Didn't I say he was endearing?!

All in all, this book didn't make me nearly as hungry as I expected it would. However, I definitely fell in love with the 10 year old Eva with the ability to eat amazingly spicy things (I felt I was meeting a kindred spirit).  My biggest criticism of this book were some of the strange names of the characters. But I often think this is more a personal pet peeve of mine.  I read fast and I hate when I have to stop and figure out what a name sounds like in my head over and over. 

The best thing I can say about this book is that I had fun reading it. That is hard to do with a book. It's easier (I think) to write a thriller that you can't put down. But a quirky fun story that keeps you engaged from beginning to end - much more difficult.  I can't wait to read more by this author! Highly recommend!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐