Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves

by Stephen Colbert, Evie McGee Colbert

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

You love him on TV, now bring him and his wife into your kitchen to make cooking fun with recipes and jokes galore. Who wouldn't want to cook with the Colberts?

Stephen and Evie Colbert invite you to pull up a chair as they share their favorite recipes from family and friends and offer a glimpse of food and fun in their South Carolina home.

“Hopefully reading this book and cooking these recipes will feel like hanging out with us at home. We basically live in the kitchen anyway.” —Evie and Stephen Colbert

As Evie and Stephen explain it, Does This Taste Funny? had its beginnings in the Covid lockdown. “We were all stuck together and couldn’t go out, so we cooked. We had all three kids back under one roof for the first time in a long time, and we had dinner each night as a family. Cooking together became a major source of entertainment.”

Now, the Colberts invite us into their kitchen and around their dining room table. Sharing Stephen and Evie’s favorite recipes, as well as those of their family and friends, this book offers everything from Party Food (called “party food” because “appetizers” implies something to follow when we all know that, often, this is the only course), to Seafood, to Poultry and Meat (“Evie and I have different relationships to meat. I like it. Evie can take it or leave it, and mostly she leaves it.”), to Desserts (“This is one of the largest sections of the book. Evie always reminds me that desserts are a great way to postpone clearing up.”), to Drinks (“I love cocktail hour. It feels like a reward for having gone so long without a cocktail”), all tied together with playful dialogue between Stephen and Evie and gorgeous shots of their food, family, and home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250859990
Publisher:	Celadon Books
Publication date:	09/17/2024
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	41
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee both grew up in Charleston, South Carolina but somehow didn’t meet until their mid-twenties and decided to get married and have a family.

They are the founders of Spartina Industries, a production company with a first-look deal at CBS Studios. Spartina has produced several projects including Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself on Hulu, PICKLED on CBS, and most recently debuted the new CBS 12:30am hour, After Midnight starring Taylor Tomlinson. Spartina is also currently developing several projects, most notably a series adaptation of The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny.

Editorial Reviews

06/17/2024

The Late Show host Colbert (America Again) and his wife and business partner, McGee Colbert, present a bighearted collection of family recipes reflecting their coastal South Carolina roots. In the introduction, they explain how the book’s origins sprang from Covid lockdown, which found the family living, cooking, and producing the show out of their Charleston home. Family and friends play a big role in inspiring dishes, with contributions from McGee Colbert’s mother (Patti McGee’s Cheese Biscuits) and a digression into son John’s experiments baking sourdough bread. Classic Southern fare includes okra soup, buttermilk cornbread, and boiled peanuts (which Colbert deems a “local—and peculiar—food”), as well as rice and bean dishes reflective of the area’s West African influences. Seafood dishes are especially plentiful, including crab cakes and sea bass. Showing off his chops in the kitchen, Colbert demonstrates how to make his annual Christmas beef wellington, complete with detailed photos. Spousal banter precedes each recipe, sometimes cheeky (Colbert teases his wife for being a “very selective vegan”), sometimes informative, and often charming. Vibrant photos throughout show the couple cooking, serving, entertaining, and lounging with family and friends. Fans will eat this up. Agent: Dan Strone, Trident Media Group. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"This joyful cookbook filled with delicious Southern family recipes and gorgeous photographs is also the story of two wonderful people who deeply love and admire each other. You’ll love this book!"

—Ina Garten

“A bighearted collection of family recipes…Fans will eat this up.”

—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

08/01/2024

In their first cookbook collaboration, the powerhouse Colbert couple share their many stories through food. Their collaboration reveals their deep love for their heritage, specifically the low country of South Carolina (tipping a hat to the culinary influence of the Gullah Geechee culture and its West African roots) and to their close-knit families, who are honored and cherished throughout. The couple introduce each recipe with often-hilarious banter, giving readers a glimpse into their relationship, families, and close friends, many of whom make an appearance in the book. The chapters are well laid out, featuring the Colberts' Southern culinary influences in categories that show their clear love for party food, including starters, meats, seafood, soups, salads, desserts, and, at the end of the book, breakfast. The choice of recipes is clearly a collaboration between the authors, with notes illustrating their frequent opposing opinions which cleverly gives home cooks options for modifying recipes based on personal preferences and dietary needs. A highlight is a featured recipe for Kindergarten Soup, which Stephen's mother created based on a recipe he wrote out as a child. VERDICT A solid, well-thought-out cookbook sure to have wide appeal to cooks and Colbert fans.—Ron Block

Library Journal