Freedom Fries and Cafe Creme

A life coach with a young daughter cooks delicious cuisine for his rich clients while wondering if there is love in his future. A young woman, while talking with her friend who has just been propositioned, wonders if there is love in her future. A young man sympathizes with his roommate who just broke up with his girlfriend and wonders if there is love in his future. Another young woman talking to her grandmother regrets the paucity of straight nice men and wonders if there is love in her future.

Those are just the first four stories of twelve that go on in this same mundane, tedious way, endlessly from January to December. I feel like I lost a year of my life in this inanity. The short stories are banal and uninspired, the conversations juvenile and insipid, and the weary exposition of the characters’ thoughts, dreary. All the characters whine tiresomely about the plebian American culture, while romanticizing French cuisine. None are sympathetic or well-drawn; they are flat and dull and so ordinary. Each story has a few recipes following it; a few look interesting (pulling my rating up to a grand total of two stars) but most are as uninspired as the characters that make them. If someone gifts you this book, use it as a doodle pad; your own creations are certain to be more interesting.