Scarpetta's Winter Table

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Summary: Neither a cook book, not a thriller
Review: If Patricia Cornwell's name hadn't been on this book, (and I too, don't think she wrote it) I wouldn't even have bothered with it. It doesn't have recipes, just generalities about throwing food together. It is not even a story....there is no plot or storyline. So what is it? That is the only mystery here. My advice is don't waste your time.

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Summary: A behind the scenes look at Kay btwn books.
Review: If you enjoy Kay and Pete, you'll enjoy this brief intermediate book about life at Scarpettas'winter table. This book is not intended to teach you to cook or solve mystries but it gives you an inside look to the direction of the next Scarpetta novel.

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Summary: Was this the real Patricia Cornwell?
Review: It is hard to believe that this book was written by the same author that held me captive throughout all the Kay Scarpetta novels. While I thought it was fun to get a glimpse of the characters'lives behind the scenes and see hints of photographs I was disappointed because I expected much more. An expensive cookbook with no real recipes.

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Summary: Great Holiday Gift for Particia Cornwell Fans
Review: Just in time for holiday shoppers seeking that perfect gift for the legions of adoring readers of author Patricia Cornwell's crime novels featuring Virginia's intrepid Chief Medical Examiner Dr.Kay Scarpetta, this absolutely beguiling little cookbook (in the form of a warmhearted novella) is jampacked with "shoot-from-the-hip" recipes. The opening chapters are set around a traditional day-after-Christmas gathering of Scarpetta's small "adopted family" consisting of niece Lucy Farinelli, special agent of the ATF, and Captain Pete Marino of the Richmond police. This garrulous party features MARINO'S CAUSE-OF-DEATH EGGNOG and SCARPETTA'S HOLIDAY PIZZA. One of many things that make this happy-go-lucky little collection memorable is that the pizza, omelet, soup, stew, pasta and dessert recipes are flexible and diabolically plotted to utilize the cornucopia of leftovers commonly overflowing shelves of post-holiday refrigerators. These savory dishes are mostly down-home, mouthwatering table fare, well-calculated to delight any number of unexpected-but welcome-guests who are the lagniappe of the wintry season. While Aunt Kay is fulfilling her annual seasonal duty with a visit to her mother and sister in Miami, Lucy whomps up a pitcher of LUCY'S BLOODY MARYS as the apertif for an eggy brunch of LUCY'S FRIENDLY GRILL which she serves the merry gathering of her off-duty ATF buddies. For dinner, she cooks the ravenous snowbound agents a kettle full of SCARPETTA'S WHOLESOME CHICKEN SOUP. Scarpetta's brief annual Miami pilgrimage rekindles painful vestiges of familial dysfunction which find healthy outlet in SCARPETTA'S BAD MOOD PASTA PRIMAVERA, a palatable pourboire of kitchen psychotherapy. The episodes recounting Marino's adventures as the unwitting overnight surrogate father of a 10-year-old male snowball terrorist, inadvertently-abandoned by his harried, snow-marooned single mother, are highlighted by a macho supper of MARINO'S LAST MINUTE CHILI and breakfast of MARINO'S SOUTHERN-STYLE NEW JERSEY OMELET. Serendipitously, we encounter SCARPETTA'S CHILDHOOD KEY LIME PIE and a to-die-for batch of LUCY'S FELONIOUS COOKIES...and Kay's super-secret cappuccino bread. In this fashion, the lighthearted little narrative gambols merrily through ten chapters ending with SCARPETTA'S FAMOUS STEW, which the kindly forensic pathologist concocts to celebrate her homecoming just in time to sabotage the gang's best New Year's diet resolutions. Reviewed by Brewster Milton Robertson

Rating:
Summary: Beware the chicken soup
Review: Just one comment. This is not a cookbook, per se, but descriptions of various things Ms. Scarpetta has cooked in her down time in the novels. Don't expect "add 1/4 tsp. water " or "chop 2 lbs. onions" or the dreaded "garnish with Mandarin orange sections, IF DESIRED". (What I Desire in a recipe is someone to do the dishes.) This is OK, tho annoying to dummy beginner cooks. Just beware the chicken soup. One cannot simmer boneless chicken breast for hours without it turning into hard tasteless little bits of cardboard!

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Summary: rather enjoyable..thank you very much!
Review: No matter what others have written before me, i enjoyed this book. Granted, it moved away from the blood and gore of previous Scarpetta books and was in turn a light hearted and uncomplicated story but nevertheless, was a great read. Yes, like others have mentioned, the words and actions of the characters at times appeared to be out of tune with the way they had been established in earlier works. To me however, it seems Ms Cornwell attempted to give us a new, relaxed insight into her and our beloved Kay, Marino and Lucy. So yes, there are some things in this book that to me do not ring quite true but overall i think this to be great read, and one i would gladly read again on any day i needed cheering up. As to whether this book was written by Cornwell, i think it was...but she just adopted a different stance than we are used to in the other books....a job well done i think.

Rating:
Summary: Works like this will ruin the Cornwell franchise
Review: Not a cookbook, this "novella" lacks a point and a plot. Cornwell must have put this together in about 3 hours. The kid is so saccharin sweet that I wonder if Cornwell has ever been near a real child. Lucy is portrayed so poorly here her character just seems to prove that Cornwell MUST get high. Which brings me to Cornwell's only area of detail: the alcohol. I guess we know the author's favorite course. I can't see who the book would appeal to. Not fans of thrillers or crime novels, since nothing happens. Not fans/users of cookbooks, since there are no real recipes. Maybe the die-hard Cornwell fans who fail to notice that this author is worsening with every book. A complete waste of money.

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Summary: Don't buy
Review: Not a cookbook. No plot line. Not worth the money

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Summary: Kay Scarpetta should stay out of the kitchen!
Review: Patricia Cornwell's foray into the "cooking detective" field is a flat souffle. She should take a few lessons from my favorite author of this sub-genre, Diane Mott Davidson, and include fewer recipes and more story. This is a cookbook masquerading as a story. I was so disappointed, I returned this book to the local library without finishing it.

Rating:
Summary: Salmonella for the brain and purse
Review: Really, that's how it felt to me. There was a number of times, as I read, that I literally turned the book over to assure myself that it was, indeed, penned by Patricia Cornwell. This was not a good venture for her to undertake. The characters and plot (was there one?) did not flow - they didn't even float. Too many recipes-too little dialog. There was no true time spent on the main characters together. This tale was mostly comprised of small (dreadfully dull) vignettes for each character. Let's start with Lucy . . Who were these nameless women that spent the night with Lucy? And WHEN did this self-absorbed-computer-genius acquire friends? Will she still have these friends after the holidays and into the next book? Or, did she pick them up at Rent-One-Plus and we will never see them again? Marino . . I have a feeling that we will see Marino's burgeoning friendship with Abby and Jimmy re-appear again in an upcoming novel. Kay . . What was the purpose of sending Kay off to see her mother and ever-absent-constantly-horny sister other than to let us in on the fact that Kay and her mother's cat just don't get along? Did anyone else think that these people drink WAY too much? There wasn't one recipe or moment in which alcohol didn't figure in; okay, except for that near-beer Kay consumed so as not to include the cat in one of the recipes. All in all, Cornwell is an excellent writer and one of my favorites. For those of us who do appreciate her great mind and writing skills, we have to think of this little book as a small error in judgement. After all, each of us has made our own little mistakes as we waltz through life, haven't we? We just don't charge people twenty bucks for them. My advice: Don't buy THIS book, save the twenty bucks and apply it toward "Southern Cross". And, forgive Ms. Cornwell this little indiscretion in literature. Nobody's perfect.