Book Review: Lucy Burdette’s Kitchen
Lucy Burdette’s Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from the Key West Food Critic Mysteries by Lucy Burdette
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I enjoy reading and using cookbooks based on favorite movies, TV shows, and books. It’s a fun and practical way to expand my enjoyment of fictional worlds. Lucy Burdette’s Kitchen does almost everything right – from the comforting, retro cover, to categorizing the recipes in sections for each novel, to the final treat, a bonus short story (Las Mango in Paradise, how clever!) with its own recipe.
There’s recipes for plenty of sweet, decadent desserts, which of course are a requirement in cozy mysteries, but there’s also lots of savory dinners and side dishes, cheesy treats, and salads. It’s light on drink recipes but there is a handful of them, including a ‘Knockoff Painkiller Cocktail’.
But there is one thing missing: food photography. There is none. Now, I have plenty of cookbooks that are text only, but most of those are vintage. Most modern day cookbooks can almost pass for art books, with plenty of splashy photography. Personally, I can enjoy a cookbook without photos but I certainly would enjoy it more with them.
My thanks to author Lucy Burdette, Crooked Lane Books, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a digital advance review copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.
Lori Alden Holuta
Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of Mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables and herbs when she’s not writing, editing, or playing games with a cat named Chives.
