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During her year of culinary experimentation, Powell often served dinner well after midnight. Critics agreed that her efforts were well rewarded, at least from a literary perspective. Even though Powell started her project as a way to sort things out__her job, her sex life, her girlfriends' sex lives, her reproductive challenges__she has all the makings of a fine food critic. If her self-effacing, humorous, even bawdy tone doesn't always produce great insight into life's little challenges, reader

During her year of culinary experimentation, Powell often served dinner well after midnight. Critics agreed that her efforts were well rewarded, at least from a literary perspective. Even though Powell started her project as a way to sort things out__her job, her sex life, her girlfriends' sex lives, her reproductive challenges__she has all the makings of a fine food critic. If her self-effacing, humorous, even bawdy tone doesn't always produce great insight into life's little challenges, readers will appreciate the scattered, small nuggets of wisdom. A few critics felt that the book did not transcend its blog; excessive details and some self-indulgence created a voice like "Bridget Jones if she were a New York foodie" (San Francisco Chronicle). But what's so bad about that?

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.