Paper Palate

As someone who you could say collects cookbooks, it’s not uncommon for me to sometimes forget I have a particular book. And sometimes I stumble across a book I forgot I had, like I did today, when hidden somewhere in my collection, I found The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner). Yeah, that’s a mouthful for a title right? The book isn’t actually a cookbook, it’s more of a narrative that contains some pretty interesting recipes. It’s one book in an entire series focused on these hilarious women known as the “Sweet Potato Queens”, a group of colorful women known for their tiaras, sequins, and spandex.

Admittedly, the spandex and sequin clad women who seem to adore anything tacky sparked my curiosity, and idea of a book packed full of recipes yet not an actual cookbook lured me in. It seemed like an interesting chick read at first, I got a few chapters in and it began to collect dust on my coffeetable. Instead of being a witty, fun group of women who have a zest for life as I first expected the Sweet Potato Queens to be, I found the book to present them as a tacky, stuck on themselves who I had no use for beyond their unusual, and sometimes odd recipes. Would I buy the book again? No, will I take full advantage of the recipes? Yes, atleast the ones that interest me anyway. Many of the recipes are loaded with fattening ingredients that make me want to go ahead and check myself into the hospital for a by-pass surgery because if you eat all the food the Queens talk about in these books you’re gonna need one!