Geraldine DeRuiter

Most travel memoirs involve a button-nosed protagonist nursing a broken heart who, rather than tearfully watching The Princess Bride while eating an entire 5-gallon vat of ice cream directly out of the container (like a normal person), instead decides to travel the world, inevitably falling for some chiseled stranger with bulging pectoral muscles and a disdain for wearing clothing above the waist. This is not that kind of book. Geraldine met the love of her life long before this story began, on a bus in Seattle surrounded by drunk college kids. She gets lost constantly, wherever she goes. And her nose would never, ever be considered “button-like.” Hilarious, irreverent and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the five-year period that kicked off when Geraldine got laid off from a job she loved and took off to travel the world. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she understands her Russian father now better than ever before. She learned that at least half of what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called “being Italian.” She learned about unemployment and brain tumors and lost luggage and lost opportunities and just getting lost, in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love. How that person can help you make sense of things, and can, by some sort of alchemy, make foreign cities and far-off places feel like home. In All Over the Place, Geraldine imparts the insight she gained while being far from home—wry, surprising, but always sincere, advice about marriage, family, health, and happiness that come from getting lost and finding the unexpected.

Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft

All Over the Place

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 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. When Geraldine DeRuiter decided to make the recipe, 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 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 through 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 desperate times, I would eat your pets. And yes, I absolutely would.”). Or how her hanger distorts her reality—and not in a fun, trippy way (“On any given day, I am faced with a philosophical conundrum: Am I the worst person who ever existed…or do I just need to maybe have a snack?”). And how she inadvertently caused another international incident with a negative restaurant review (she made the cover of The New York Times! And she also got more 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.

Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury

If You Can't Take the Heat

Some people are meant to travel the globe, to unwrap its secrets and share them with the world. And some people have no sense of direction, are terrified of pigeons, and get motion sickness from tying their shoes. These people are meant to stay home and eat nachos. Geraldine DeRuiter is the latter. But she won't let that stop her. Hilarious, irreverent, and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the years Geraldine spent traveling the world after getting laid off from a job she loved. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she now understands her Russian father better than ever before. She learned that what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called "being Italian." She learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love--how that person can help you make sense of things and make far-off places feel like home. She learned about unemployment and brain tumors, lost luggage and lost opportunities, and just getting lost in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned that sometimes you can find yourself exactly where you need to be--even if you aren't quite sure where you are.

Geraldine DeRuiter

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