don’t try this at home: culinary catastrophes from the world’s greatest chefs by kimberly witherspoon and andrew friedman (editors) is a collection of essays and stories from a number of chefs, as you might have guessed from the sub-title. they are pretty consistently great, and most of them are also very funny.

one story is from the execute chef/founders at downtown’s ciudad, mary sue milliken and susan feniger, and is about a disaster they had on their way to cater part of a charity event at the biltmore hotel. like many of the stories in the book, it will make you happy you weren’t on the tasting end of that particular meal.