If You Can't Take the Heat

Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury

By: Geraldine DeRuiter

Narrated by: Geraldine DeRuiter

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the James Beard Award-winning blogger behind The Everywhereist come hilarious, searing essays on how food and cooking stoke the flames of her feminism.

“With charm and humor, Geraldine DeRuiter welcomes us into her personal history and thus reconnects us with ourselves.”—Mikki Kendall, New York Times bestselling author of Hood Feminism

ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

When celebrity chef Mario Batali sent out an apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations made against him, he had the gall to include a recipe—for cinnamon rolls, of all things. Geraldine DeRuiter decided to make the recipe, and she happened to make food journalism history along with it. Her subsequent essay, with its scathing commentary about the pervasiveness of misogyny in the food world, would be read millions of times, lauded by industry luminaries from Martha Stewart to New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, and would land DeRuiter in the middle of a media firestorm. She found herself on the receiving end of dozens of threats when all she wanted to do was make something to eat (and, okay fine, maybe take down the patriarchy).

In If You Can’t Take the Heat, DeRuiter shares stories about her shockingly true, painfully funny (and sometimes just painful) adventures in gastronomy. We’ll learn how she finally got a grip on her debilitating anxiety by emergency meal-planning for the apocalypse. (“You are probably deeply worried that in times of desperation I would eat your pets. And yes, I absolutely would.”) Or how she learned to embrace her hanger. (“Because women can be a lot of things, but we can’t be angry. Or president, apparently.”) And how she inadvertently caused another international incident with a negative restaurant review. (She made it on to the homepage of The New York Times’s website! And she got more death threats!)

Deliciously insightful and bitingly clever, If You Can’t Take the Heat is a fresh look at food and feminism from one of the culinary world’s sharpest voices.

©2024 Geraldine DeRuiter (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Anything by Geraldine DeRuiter is required reading—her sharp, funny observations about food never fail to delight. . . . She expertly dismantles and exposes the patriarchy that underlies so much of contemporary food culture. . . . Following in the footsteps of culinary memoirists such as Nora Ephron and Laurie Colwin, DeRuiter has honed a perfect recipe for the food essay.”—Saveur, Best Narrative Food Books of 2024

“As the title promises, I was sometimes infuriated, sometimes astonished, by what I learned. But, mostly, I laughed at DeRuiter’s humor, which made this book a joy to read.”—NPR, Books We Love

“Whether writing about her affinity for Red Lobster or putting the pieces back together after a terrible kitchen fire, DeRuiter approaches the subject with both wry wit and a sharp tongue. . . . She manages to examine the ways that women are marginalized in the culinary world—and her own anxieties surrounding food—with refreshing candor and a big pinch of humor.”—Eater, “The Best Food Books to Read This Spring”

Touching, funny, frustrating, and amazing.

The author’s narration is perfect, the essays are entertaining and thought provoking, and very witty. A fun listen.

So relatable

This book is a delight. It is infinitely relatable, inspiring, thought-provoking, and validating. I was disappointed when it was over.

Hilarious and validating

I loved this author’s voice, her humor, and her fight against the BS that is the patriarchy.

Fierce!

The intersection of food and feminism is found in the fury of navigating an adult life when cultural ‘norms’ that are anything but normal.

Always enjoy the blogs - But the book would have been better for me than the audiobook.

I love reading The Everywhereist blog, and it is as a huge part of my life in the 2010s as I tried to be a travel blogger myself.

The stories were always well written, witty, and amusing. I was very excited to get to this book - but probably would have been better off reading it instead of listening to it.

After years of having the author's voice in my head as I had made it up to be, the real author was nothing like my inner monologue, and it really threw me off. There was a lot of overemphasis, or emphasis on the wrong words. (In my own head anyway)

I feel like the book is written a lot like the blogs, and had I sat down to enjoy the actual book, read out by my inner monologue, I would have enjoyed it much more.

Thoughtful, funny, important

I read this collection of essays in one sitting. It’s a warm, wonderful meditation on food, family – both the chosen and unchosen kind – and society’s view of women that made me reflect, laugh, and want to be an agent of change all at once.


Highly recommended!

Beautiful & funny

This book was so much better than expected! It wasn’t just about food, or feminism; it was about family, culture, and the difficulty of being public in today’s angry world. Having the author read the book is always my preference- and Geraldine’s inflection & intonation (& her mom’s accent) were great.

Funny and thought provoking

Excellent book. Highly recommend. I listened during my commute and I didn’t mind sitting in traffic.

Self deprecating humor in its best form.

Loved the beautiful combo of psychology, culture and food. Great voice for millennials (and even some of us younger Gen X’ers!)

Kind of tedious

I really wanted to like this book.

I follow the author on social media and have read her blog. I pre-ordered and was very excited. But listening to her go on and on for this many hours grew quite tiresome.

Around Chapter 11 I realized that I didn’t want to listen to her anymore, nor did I care about anything she was sharing. I was determined to finish it. But every time I started listening, it became a chore. Her voice didn’t start out sounding whiney to me, but by the end, I couldn’t stand hearing her anymore. There’s very few authors who I could listen to reading their own work until the end of time (Neil Gaiman comes to mind; his voice is like silk), and so when an author reads their own book, I hesitate (not everyone sounds like Neil Gaiman, after all). Her reading her own book was a bad idea.

I generally enjoy reading her writing, but all of this at once, it made it clear to me that she’s a mediocre writer. I hate having to say that, but this book was just ok. I really wanted to like this, but I couldn’t.