Dishing Up Love - K.D. Robichaux

Title: Dishing Up Love
Author: K.D. Robichaux
Genre: Chick-lit
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 257
Date read: July, 2022

Erin Bazzara is living life to the fullest as a single woman in New Orleans and making a name for herself as one of the top psychologists in the state of Louisiana. Years ago, she swore off men after receiving devastating news, news that proved her fiancé didn’t care about the rule “in sickness and in health.” It also proved he didn’t really care about her.
Good riddance, who needs a man anyway? Not her. Not ever again.
Or so she thought, until she literally runs into a certain world-renowned chef who looks at her like she might be his next four-course meal.

Chef Curtis Rockwell, host of the award-winning Chef To Go, never knows who the next participant on his show will be. State to state, city to city, he scours grocery store aisles each episode, looking for the perfect stranger to go home with so he can teach them how to cook a gourmet meal. It’s always been just a part of his job, a job he loves but still a job…
Then he spots her. The perfect participant. The perfect woman. A woman not even his dreams could have conjured up.
Now, all he has to do is prove the heat between them won’t just sizzle out like yesterday’s flambé.


First of all, I am SO glad that this was the cover I saw when I picked up the book, or there is no WAY I would ever have read it. I'm not usually a book cover snob, but why-oh-why would somebody exchange this super-cute cover for the bodice-ripper cover that's currently on Amazon??? I went to see what it cost to buy a copy for myself and just NOPED right back out of there. I will never understand some publishers :-P

Aaaaanyway! With that out of the way (and welcome back those of you curious enough to go take a look ;-) ), I will say that book-snobbery aside, this was a really sweet book :-) Completely unrealistic, of course, but true to it's own universe, so it still (mostly) worked for me. The chemistry between Curtis and Erin was off the charts, I loved the banter between the two, and I LOVED the close friendships both of them had with Carlos and Emma respectively. Especially Erin and Emma's reunion at the airport rang very true to me. The pacing was different from what I had expected (more than half the book takes place over the course of just one day), but it worked. Gave it sort of a "Before Sunrise" feel.

A lot less spicy than the current bodice-ripper cover would have you think (the cover here fits much better). Lots of dirty banter, but only one seriously steamy scene. Easily skipped, if spice isn't really your thing.