If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury

From the James Beard Award-winning blogger behind The Everywhereist come hilarious, searing essays on how food and cooking stoke the flames of her feminism

When celebrity chef Mario Batali sent out an apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations made against him, he had the gall to include a recipe—for cinnamon rolls, of all things. When Geraldine DeRuiter decided to make the recipe, she happened to make food journalism history along with it. Her subsequent essay, with its scathing commentary about the pervasiveness of misogyny in the food world, would be read millions of times, lauded by industry luminaries from Martha Stewart to New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, and would land DeRuiter in the middle of a media firestorm. She found herself on the receiving end of dozens of threats, when all she wanted to do was make something to eat…and maybe take down the patriarchy.

In If You Can’t Take the Heat, DeRuiter shares stories about her shockingly true, painfully funny (and sometimes just painful) adventures through gastronomy. We’ll learn how she finally got a grip on her debilitating anxiety by emergency meal-planning for the apocalypse (“You are probably deeply worried that in desperate times, I would eat your pets. And yes, I absolutely would.”). Or how her hanger distorts her reality—and not in a fun, trippy way (“On any given day, I am faced with a philosophical conundrum: Am I the worst person who ever existed…or do I just need to maybe have a snack?”). And how she inadvertently caused another international incident with a negative restaurant review (she made the cover of The New York Times! And she also got more threats!).

Deliciously insightful and bitingly clever, If You Can’t Take the Heat is a fresh look at food and feminism from one of the culinary world’s sharpest voices.