Dear Readers,
Okay, you just have to check out Susan Reinhardt's book, "Dishing With the Kitchen Virgin", published by Kensington. It's not often I rush to finish some one's hair to read a book but her cover just got me from the get go! It's a hoot and her recipe for "Darin's Death of Romance Irish Stew" sounded like something I would make. I no longer cook as my husband made fun of my lima bean and purple hull pea vegetable dish, well that dish was the straw that broke the Kat's cooking back. My kids are still embarrassed that I snuck dried cranberries into the brownies I served at youth group. They all thought they were bugs or even worse, raisins. I can relate to Susan's book BIG TIME!
I immediately emailed Susan and did an interview that I am now sharing with all of you.
Hang on to your big girl panties for her book is a wild ride and so was the interview, see below.
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
www.beautyandthebook.com
www.pulpwoodqueen.com
KATHY: Susan, I have become a big fan of your type of writing. Anything that makes me laugh so hard I almost pee my big girl panties, is my kind of book. Nobody that can be as up as me can keep it going forever. Your books bring me great joy and make me realize, we all need humor in our lives no matter how dire the circumstances. How do you write funny? What's your secret?
SUSAN: It's genetic. I have the funniest family alive. My sister just bought a possum fur coat on eBay. She had to have it or die. Then there's my wild aunt Betty, who at 70-plus turns cartwheels and cuts flips whenever she has an audience. In fact, she creates an audience. The downside is she's had to have her bladder tacked back up three times.
Then there's my dad who befriended an orphaned and alcoholic cat. When Mama's religion starting soaring, along with her blood pressure, she gave up afternoon cocktails, so Dad and the cat would climb up on the roof of our house, watch the sunset and drink beer and wine. The cat was snooty and liked the wines with corks. She lived 18 pickled years.
Oh, and Mama. Lord, she's a hoot. She's got two outfits picked out for her funeral. One for the viewing and one for burial. "Y'all will have to change my clothes," she said, "No way I'm meeting Jesus in a red suit." She also put her mausoleum plots on Visa, earned Frequent Flyer miles and went to Spain on her funeral funds.
KATHY: How did you get into writing? You could have been a fashion model.
SUSAN: A model? No way, Kat. As you know, I'm the daughter of a hairdresser, such as yourself. Got my first perm at age 3, and began wearing wigs at 6. I love food too much to model. I did try it for about a year and got nowhere. Then, at 46, I got to do that little spread in More magazine's April edition. It was very boring sitting around waiting for all the shooting and getting tons of makeup caked on every five minutes. Not for me, honey. Only humor and laughing. And loving others. I call it sin balancing. If I do something naughty, I have to do something nice to get to Heaven.
KATHY: For me, growing up in the flint hills of Kansas, we never had a bookstore let alone a psychiatrist. Books from the school library was my saving grace and also my version of the psychiatrist's couch. You have had some trying times. How have you dealt with them?
ANSWER: I turned 40 and everything went to pot. Both physically and mentally. I had what southerners call a "Well-Deserved" nervous breakdown. It was actually an awful depression fueled by a painful separation. I was hospitalized, but tried to have fun even there. Now, I speak to groups and have become both the poster child for Humor and Depression. Now, isn't that crazy?
Today, in order to stay sane, I eat chocolate, read humor, love my children, and try to count every single blessing. I also take a good medication, to be truthful. I wish everyone had access to mental and medical health coverage. I was lucky.
KATHY: You are also a columnist. Tell us about that.
SUSAN: At first I was a reporter and the editors didn't quite know what to do with my "style" of reporting. Finally, one threw up his hands and said. "I'm a huge fan of Lewis Grizzard. I'm giving you the job of three columns a week." That first year, I was so fortunate and won 1st place nationally for all of the Gannett Newspapers. I think there are 100 of them and some run my columns each week.
KATHY: I have often dreamed of being a country western singer. If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?
SUSAN: I'd be Erica Kane on "All my Children." Or maybe, since that sounds vain, a pediatrician. But I quit nursing school after having given one too many enemas!
KATHY: What is your most precious possession and why?
SUSAN: Well, after my kids, I'd have to say my collection of Kate Spade purses. Since I'm a Goodwill shopper and bargain hunter, they are my only luxuries. Then again, I bought them off eBay, but at least it wasn't possum fur!!!
KATHY: If you were to host a dinner party using the new recipes in your latest book, who would you invite?
SUSAN: YOU, of course and a bunch of great writers and lovers of books. I'd also have to invite Matthew McConaughey, though his teeth are a tad too white.
KATHY: Who was the most influential person in your life and why?
SUSAN: My father. He grew up dirt poor, with a father who spent the paycheck on booze and a mother who met ends meet by frying chicken for the mill workers. My dad worked his way through college and became very successful. To give back, he runs a ministry for 80 poor children in the area and he and Mom take them to church with a van they all bought and cook for them. They also buy them clothes and school supplies. It's part of their church ministry. These are kids whose parents are either dead from drugs or in jail and live in horrible conditions, many of them.
KATHY: What is your definition of beauty?
SUSAN: A woman who's always smiling. And doing it sincerely.
KATHY: Last, what prompted you to write this latest book?
SUSAN: I knew I had some funny and disastrous cooking adventures, and quite frankly, I needed the money! It's sort of an anti-cookbook filled with all sorts of other types of hijinks's.
KATHY: Is that you as a blonde on the cover?
SUSAN: That's not my butt on the cover. I wish it was!!!!
KATHY: Would you tell everybody then that it's MY BUTT ON THE BOOK, ha ha ha!
SUSAN: Yes, I will!!
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 fundraiser for Hospice, the United Way, the American Lymphoma and Leukemia Society, the PTA 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 has two adorable children and still calls her mama every night. Visit her at www.susanreinhardt.com
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