"She's like a modern-day, southern-fried Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry." — Booklist Is the brand sticker still affixed to your sautépan? Is your wok used solely as a receptacle for potato chips? Does your blender only see the light of day when Baccardi or Tequila is involved? If so, then welcome to the Kitchen Virgin Club. But don't despair—you're in the illustrious company of Susan syndicated columnist, spokeswoman for skewed southern bellehood. . .and one truly lousy cook. In this cleaver-sharp new collection of food stories, culinary missteps, and recipes from yummy to yucky, Reinhardt comes clean—way clean—as the unapologetic product of a long line of talented, fascinating, funny women who have regular brushes with homicide by pot roast. From "The Toaster Oven is a Bee-otch" to "When Road Kill Makes it to Mikasa," as well as the titular tale of the socialite who shaved her fuzzy greens, these stranger-than-fiction accounts will have you laughing until milk spews out of your nose. And for those inspired to graduate from Kitchen Virgin to Kitchen 'Tute, there's "Bone Apple Cheat!"— Reinhardt's own shortcut-to-real-food recipes. So next time you're tempted to make Taco Bell your last (okay, first) resort, crack open this book, have a laugh. . .and get cookin'. "So engaging. . .so honest. . .will make you laugh out loud." — The Asheville Citizen-Times "Like hanging out with your bluntest, most mischievous friend, the one who never fails to crack you up." — Chicago Sun-Times "Funny and touching. . .Reinhardt is not afraid to put it all out there." — The Pilot (N.C.) "Susan Reinhardt takes the naked, honest truth and sets it on fire in a blaze of laughter. . . will have you holding your sides the whole time." —Laurie Notaro, Autobiography of a Fat Girl "She can break your heart in one sentence and leave you laughing till you're breathless in the next." —Julie Cannon, True Love & Homegrown Tomatoes Susan Reinhardt is a syndicated columnist and feature writer whose work has appeared all over the world in major newspapers such as the Washington Post, London Daily Mirror, Newsday, and other Tribune Media and Gannett publications. Reinhardt has won dozens of awards for her writing, including several Best of Gannett honors and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. A long-time volunteer fund-raiser for Hospice, the United Way, the American Lymphoma and Leukemia Society, the PTO and other worthwhile and not so worthwhile causes, Reinhardt is also a proud member of the Not Quite Write Book Club, a group of ten women who drink wine and pretend to act literary. A true Daughter of the South, Susan Reinhardt was born in South Carolina, was raised in Georgia, and currently makes her home in Asheville, North Carolina, the jewel city of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is married to jazz musician Stuart Reinhardt and has two adorable children. She still calls her mama every night.
Author
I am a verified kook magnet. Delightful loose cannons attach to me like cat hair on velvet sofas. Why? Because I’m one of them, a kindred spirit secreting a chemical akin to pheromones that attract the misfit species to which I joyfully belong. The beauty of this becomes the cuisine for my writing, my characters, themes and plots. I’m a Southerner who has lived in Georgia, South Carolina, and now the mountains of Western North Carolina and such locales are soaked in opportunities to cross paths with colorful individuals whose stories simply floor me. I once met a man convinced a hoodlum gorilla was trying to steal his 1955 DeSoto. Said the primate was behind the wheel taunting and grinning at him and possibly armed. Not long after that, I encountered Yelling Woman who constantly called the sheriff about a band of teensy prostitutes living and fornicating under her single-wide. Not to mention the lady I met who poured out beer to kill her snails and had to call the law because the squirrels gulped the beer, got plastered, and caused mayhem in her yard. Or the man who got a DWI on horseback when he and Old Smokey galloped through the McDonald’s drive-through, ordering both him and his horse a Happy Meal. I am telling the truth. As a former syndicated columnist for the Asheville Citizen-Times and Gannett Newspapers, I’ve won dozens of national awards for such columns and feature stories. Funny thing is, I didn’t start out to become a professional writer. During junior high, I was the awkward buck-toothed nerd who stole away to the attic to write the worst love poems ever penned. It was my father, a conservative who was concerned when I came out as a liberal at age 7, who told me nursing was where it was at. “For young women like you who may never get husbands.” Hmm. I entered nursing school and worked summers as a Nurse Tech at a Georgia hospital, expertly changing Depends and giving hot, soapy enemas. My greatest claim to nursing fame was when I woke a man from a deep coma. He was 87 and my supervisor forced me to give him a sponge bath. A full one. All parts. No skipping areas that my 18-year-old near-virgin self wanted to avoid. Once I began, eyes closed, bathing his “region”, he moaned and popped a wobbly erection. As I flew from the room, he cried, “Don’t gooooooooo. Stay and play with me.” I quickly changed my major to journalism, ignoring my dad’s warning of no husband. In summary, I’ve worked for newspapers, magazines, have been a guest on national radio shows (one of which was Playboy), performed stand-up comedy, and was a keynote speaker for some prestigious writers events. I was also a speaker for some crummy gigs I’d like to forget. It was my boyfriend after college, a man twice my age afflicted with monolithic OCD, who gave me a copy of a book that changed my life: A Confederacy of Dunces. That is when I knew I’d write both humorous essays (aspiring to be David Sedaris) and novels. My first book, Not Tonight Honey: Wait ‘til I’m a Size 6 sold enough that I bought a breast lift and a modest home with money left for a new roof. I have a few other published books as well. My debut novel Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle was signed by a great agent. She couldn’t sell it. I went on to publish with a small press and it won the IPPY for Best Southern Fiction. When I lost my job as a columnist due to massive lay-offs, I became a makeup artist for Lancome, all while dealing with a young adult son struggling with addiction, the inspiration for latest my novel, The Beautiful Misfits. I tried all I could to help him and realized treatment centers in this country were lacking and not fully effective. One size fits all, our country’s model, has led to raging recidivism. So when I wrote The Beautiful Misfits, I researched countless centers, interviewed those with addiction, and came up with an unconventional treatment plan offering myriad options for recovery and reentry into society.
