“Cookfight is an engaging book about what we each bring into our kitchens besides the ingredients. . . . very entertaining.”

“CookFight is a clever new cookbook based on a culinary battle between New York Times reporters Kim Severson and Julia Moskin. While you are welcome to pick sides, and may find one woman’s recipes more appealing, the book’s competitive spirit remains friendly, and in the end, it’s the reader and home cook that wins.”

“Severson and Moskin are the best of friends, rather like an old married couple that know each other’s strengths and weaknesses as well as they do their own. Their skills as writers and cooks shine through Cook Fight’s collection of essays and recipes, making this book just as enjoyable to read as it is to cook from.”

“One of our favorite food memoirs of the year was Kim Severson’s Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life (Riverhead), which PW’s starred review called a “‘rank confessional memoir.’

The Today Show’s Ann Curry calls Kim “a delicious writer” and says Spoon Fed is “lovely.”

“Whether hiding chicken nuggets from slow-food guru Alice Water or obsessing about Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl ‘in a Single White Female kind of way,’ NY Times food writer has certainly been under the influence of cooking’s grand dames. Luckily for us, she got past her Lucy Ricardo moments—and plenty that weren’t so funny—to produce this delightful memoir, a combo platter of life lessons, dishy profiles of her mentors and gustatory edification (with recipes!).” (Four stars.)

A Publishers Weekly Starred Review calls SPOON FED “brave and sincere.”

Vanity Fair includes Spoon Fed in its “Essential Reading” column. 

“‘Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life’ by Kim Severson is, much like [Anthony] Bourdain’s memoir, a hymn to the blessed cooks. Severson, a food writer at the New York Times, gives thanks to the likes of Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Marcella Hazan, Rachael Ray and her mother, Anne Marie Severson. Each cook taught her something different, some invaluable survival skill.”

Spoon Fed “is an emotionally mature food memoir ... Severson’s past is not in a lockbox. It’s in a kitchen drawer she can easily open and explore for its enduring wisdom. And while her book is an invitation to meet some of the individuals she was fortunate enough to meet in her still-young career (Marion Cunningham, Edna Lewis), it is also a study in using one’s past to inform the present. That perspective, combined with Severson’s charm and curiosity, make this one a must.”

“It’s an an honest, funny and humble story about getting over fears, alcoholism and yourself to succeed in life.”

Daily Candy calls Spoon Fed one of a handful of “great new books to take on vacation ... Big names (Ruth Reichl, Alice Waters) appear throughout food writer Kim Severson’s memoir Spoon Fed. But the real story is hers, from feeling like an outsider at work to coming out as a lesbian.”

“Alcoholism, coming out, struggles with personal identity—the staple ingredients of the modern memoir are rendered fresh in Kim Severson’s never self-indulgent, always honest new book.”

Kim takes Eleanor Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein and Lucille Ball to dinner in 20 questions from Pop Matters.

“It’s warm and funny, a breezy read.”

“Often the conversation about women and food is one of pathology — of eating disorders and body hate. And while this is an important conversation, food writer Kim Severson reminds us that it’s not the only one ...what her book conveys best is the fact that food can be a source not just of worry, but of companionship.”

“[Severson] renders her subjects in a light both candid and forgiving, such that a reader could never doubt her journalistic creed to always tell the truth.”

“It’s just so wonderful.”

“If you’ve read something interesting in The New York Times food section, chances are Kim Severson wrote it. Since leaving the San Francisco Chronicle six years ago to join the Times’ food staff, the award-winning reporter has exposed the dangers of trans fats, explored the childhood obesity epidemic, and written about people and trends with humor and intelligence.”

“I read a lot of food memoirs but when this one hit my desk a few weeks ago, I couldn’t put it down ...I particularly loved “Popular Girls,” a chapter on Ruth Reichl and self-acceptance, or lessons on faith and tenacity in New Orleans from the wonderful Leah Chase, even embracing authenticity and ambition from Rachael Ray. Severson’s own stories carry impact due to the heartfelt candor with which she shares her insecurities and fears, and what she has achieved in facing them.”

“Kim Severson’s honest, engaging and funny new food memoir Spoon Fed is so absorbing, I missed my stop on three occasions ...along with some hilarious stories, Severson has created a moving, modern canon of women in food.”

Marion Cunningham, Edna Lewis, Alice Waters, Rachael Ray, Ruth Reichl, Marcella Hazan, Leah Chase and her mother are all profiled. While these women are kind of like the props Kim uses to tell her story, it’s an effective, clever approach. Each one has a quality she’s admired and incorporated into her life.Kim has a way of getting to the essence of a person’s personality, as well as her own.

“Truth, it turns out, is Kim Severson’s bag. In her wonderful new memoir, Spoon Fed (which is out today), Kim spends 242 pages telling the truth. Sometimes it’s painful to read (Kim was such a severe alcoholic, she almost died), sometimes it’s hilarious (don’t miss the scene at Christmas when Kim’s father asks her gay brother’s Muslim boyfriend why his people like to crash planes into buildings), but mostly it’s thoughtful, instructive and deeply moving.”

“The book is sprinkled with interesting food history and explanations of how food critics do their job (sample enough to get your benchmarks: the chocolate against which every other chocolate is compared, for example).”

“In true Severson style, the narrative never shies away from the nitty-gritty. Here, food acts as the lowest common denominator, and the eight personalities are exalted for their humanity, flaws and all. The result is an honest, often hilarious read, as comforting as the dishes it offers up.”

Spoon Fed “is a poignant story told with Severson’s trademark humor and open-armed love of family and friends. Grab a few tissues, it’s that sweet. If you’re in need of life lessons, you’ll find some to suit you. Spoon Fed pays homage to some remarkable women and whether Severson believes it or not, she is one, too.”

“It’s a trip! It’s funny, sad, warm — like a long, great dinner. In it, Kim tells the story of finding her way in the highly competitive snakepit of food writing, in the intense, hyperfoodie era of elevated American eating culture that really started to take hold in the 1990s and 2000s.”

“The recipe for a memoir is easy to scorch, many tend to overly sweet mawkishness while others to bitter reverie. As befits a truly passionate gourmet, in Spoon Fed, Severson has gotten the balance exactly right.”

“Spoon Fed is an engaging read. Severson succeeds by combining several key qualities I believe make a good memoir: poignancy, vulnerability, revelations (without being TMI), insight (aha! moments), and humor.”

“Severson’s writing is as appetizing and as compelling as the gumbo at Double Muskie; one of the things that made journalism in Anchorage better than you might think back when she was here, at least.”

“These pages are marbled with all the wonderful food that Severson writes about famously well, but it is Kim’s own stories of her family, jobs, challenges and triumphs that got me. All of them are so funny, engaging, moving and open, I was immediately endeared to her and wished she was sitting in my kitchen, talking and making lunch. This book will linger on my bedside table for a good while as I know I will want to read it again.”

“Among the handful of American food writers with both real wit and truth in their bag, New York Times writer Kim Severson stands out as the new standard for delicious literacy. This book is an essential read in the new literary category of food writing and is a perfect hybrid of story and emotion.”

“Severson’s book is part memoir, part cooking class, part-history and totally entrancing. It is like the Meyer lemons that she so loves—tart, beautiful, full of surprises and absolutely delicious.”

“As a daughter and a writer, a drinker, and most of all, a cook who finds both solace and challenge in the kitchen, I found that Spoon Fed rang almost frighteningly true. Kim’s writing is feisty, dishy, gimlet-eyed, and generous. A great, honest memoir.”