{"id":1611,"date":"2015-02-25T20:08:13","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T04:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2015-02-25T20:08:13","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T04:08:13","slug":"julie-hyzy-all-the-presidents-menus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/julie-hyzy-all-the-presidents-menus\/","title":{"rendered":"Julie Hyzy: All the President\u2019s Menus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"presidents-menus\"<\/a>It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m a giant Julie Hyzy fan, whose White House Chef series just about reads like an episode of \u201cThe West Wing\u201d only set in the kitchen. In the last book, to sort some personal stuff out, Chef Ollie Paras has to \u2013 gasp \u2013 leave the kitchen. Well, I understand. She had a lot on her plate and (spoiler if you haven\u2019t yet read Home of the Braised<\/em>) she got married to her Secret Service sweetie, Gav.<\/p>\n

OK. She\u2019s married, Gav is on medical leave, but she\u2019s \u2013 yay \u2013 back in the kitchen. There\u2019s a gentle jab from Hyzy aimed at the government sequester (it\u2019s forced Ollie\u2019s prized assistant, Cyan, on leave) and the lack of activity as state dinners have pretty much shut down. Ollie is just wishin\u2019 and hopin\u2019 for a little more of a lively time when word comes down that there will be a team of visiting chefs from the country of Saardisca, and they\u2019ll be working with Ollie\u2019s team to create a dinner for a Saardiscan Presidential candidate, to be held across the street at Blair House.<\/p>\n

Ollie prepares for the visit, unsure of what to expect. Apparently Saardican men, for one thing, are uncomfortable with the idea of a woman in charge, and look to Ollie\u2019s assistant, Bucky, for guidance. They also frequently lapse into Saardiscan, and Ollie wants to know what they are discussing, especially after a series of accidents leaves the White House pastry chef and then one of the Saardiscan chefs incapacitated. Ollie has a hard time convincing the Secret Service of the budgetary need for a translator.<\/p>\n

In true Ollie fashion, the action ratchets up and the plot thickens, even as the dinner for the Saardiscan candidate is planned and prepared by a rotating team of chefs. Since Gav is on leave she doesn\u2019t have him to turn to but this far along she can take matters into her own hands and be trusted by the powers that be.<\/p>\n

Hyzy\u2019s delicious combination of White House protocol, a little dab of cooking, and her real genius \u2013 character development and interaction, along with a rousing good story \u2013 had me flipping the pages faster and faster until the end. There\u2019s always an item prepared in the course of the story I wish I could actually see (you can Google the White House kitchen and Blair House, though) and she even includes a kick ass granola recipe in the recipe section at the end. If there\u2019s a better way to spend $8 I\u2019m not sure what it might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m a giant Julie Hyzy fan, whose White House Chef series just about reads like an episode of \u201cThe West Wing\u201d only set in the kitchen. In the last book, to sort some personal stuff out, Chef Ollie Paras has to \u2013 gasp \u2013 leave the kitchen. Well, I understand. She … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-americancozy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1613,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}