I'd give this a 3.5- a fun and fluffy bio about life in the food and tv business. I didn't start watching Top Chef until late in the game, so I missed some of her references about the show. LOVED hearing about her job working as Jeffrey Steingarten's assistant! ( )

A promising young woman graduates from college and contemplates what she should do with her life. With the support of friends and family, she is encouraged to follow a dream summarized in just four words: “Eat. Write. Travel. Cook.” Pursuing that ambition leads her to enroll in a leading cooking school, work in the kitchen and special events administration for two of the top restaurants in the world, serve as an assistant for a legendary food critic, join the staff of one of the top food-oriented periodicals, and become a judge and host on the best of the myriad food competition television shows that currently proliferate the airwaves. And she does all of this before the age of 40!

If that journey sounds irresistibly interesting and one that rises to the “must read” level, you are likely to be as disappointed as I was with Talking With My Mouth Full. Although Gail Simmons—the star of this particular story—has assembled a unique and undeniably impressive resume, her memoir is surprisingly dull and uninspiring. The problem is not in the writing style, but in the pacing and depth of the book’s content. Said a little more plainly, Simmons spends far too much time on uninteresting vignettes about her childhood and personal relationships and not nearly enough time focused on her life as a “professional eater”, which is the way she describes herself.

In particular, Simmons has relatively little to say—just one full chapter and part of another—about her experience as a judge on Top Chef, which I suspect is the only reason most potential readers know her name and would want to pick up the book in the first place. By contrast, she spends just as much time discussing her girlhood experiences, her travels with a variety of boyfriends, and her elaborate wedding plans; I found these lengthy passages to be especially turgid and distracting. So, while Simmons is a likeable person who would seem to have plenty to offer, her inability or unwillingness to dig deeply into the details of the professional experiences by which most of us know her made this a frustrating and unrewarding reading experience. ( )

Not dishy enough -- Simmons seems unwilling to open up in a satisfying way. Some parts are interesting, but there is plenty that is dull. ( )

Read 5.2024