It’s just plain bad for you, folks.
And I say this as a lover of a good steak. L-O-V-E-R. It was a thrill just to watch a $270 Swinging Tomahawk steak presented to a young couple at the restaurant table next to my husband and I last weekend.
Long gone are the days when I could scarf down a New York strip or a filet mignon. A bite here or there, sure. A hunk the size of my hand? Nope, not anymore.
Living vicariously through others isn’t that bad, honestly. It’s what made reading Rebecca Kauffman’s “The Reservation” so much fun.
I mean, who steals 22 steaks and how could they possibly be preparing them? On the grill? Sous vide? Bathed in butter? How about a Gorgonzola crust?
A girl can dream …
Kauffman’s tale of a Midwest college town’s only fine dining establishment and the people that work there was an engaging, sweet and yes, somewhat anxious read. Told from the perspective of a handful of employees at Aunt Orsa’s, readers find out early on that nearly two dozen steaks have gone missing the morning of a very important reservation: author John Grisham is in town for an event and its organizers have made plans to eat there.
Orsa’s nephew Danny is completing is post-close check on a Monday morning when he has to call her with the strange news, which sets of a chain of events and a series of narrators that allow readers into each character’s minds for color and context as to how and why they act the way they do.
The cast is a colorful one, from Orsa herself, a somewhat rough around the edges middle-aged woman who talks a good game with an affectation that toggles between gruff and sass; to college students just trying to make ends meet, a chef living with survivor’s guilt, a line cook with a sad, troubled past, a single mom that just wants a chance and a wannabe novelist with no moral issues around stealing his next chapter from his coworkers’ lives.
“The Reservation” makes for a great book club pick because it has a lot of book club vibes — you’ve got multiple characters to root for or against, the backdrop of a crazy evening includes a potential author visit, there’s food talk from start to finish (spoiler alert you will now be making creme brulee for dessert) and it’s a relatively short, easy read at just over 250 pages.
My only (hahahahaha) beef? I need to know more about what happens to Jane. Those Mennonites are a wild bunch.
Pick this up, pour a glass, throw a steak on the grill and savor it all.
LitzyDitz 