In her latest offering, Pot Luck: Random Acts of Cooking, Tinky Weisblat — a writer, performer, and unapologetic character — delivers more than just recipes. She plates up a year’s worth of recollection, ritual, cultural commentary, and heart — all served with a side of sass and a generous helping of butter.
Structured like a calendar but written like a fireside yarn, Pot Luck invites readers to settle in as the seasons change — and as Tinky reflects, reacts, and remembers her way through holidays both familiar and obscure. Some entries feel like journal pages, others like stand-up routines with a spatula. Every one of them is stamped with her signature blend of wit and warmth.
Food As Memory
Tinky doesn’t just cook — she excavates. A single recipe might lead to a detour through family history, New England folklore, regional agriculture, or neighborhood gossip. One minute, you’re reading about Mardi Gras Jambalaya, and the next, she’s recounting a galette she once made with local apples and a bit of theatrical flair. She never lingers long — each piece is bite-sized — but the depth is there, just under the surface.
Recipes are included, of course, but they often feel secondary to the moment they’re wrapped in. One dish, a luscious spinach and caramelized onion dip, begins with Tinky walking her dog in early spring and marveling at the treetops. A batch of hoecakes sparks a miniature rant against the bland gruel of George Washington’s original version. (Spoiler: she fixes it.)
And that’s the magic trick: these aren’t just instructions for food — they’re invitations to remember, to laugh, and to gather.
Rhubarb and Rhythm
Weisblat’s tone is conversational without being flippant, warm without being syrupy. There’s mischief in these pages. Recipes for chocolate Easter eggs and strawberry shortcake share space with her gleeful confession that she once ignored George Washington’s hoecake recipe because, well, it was gross. “I pretty much just threw it out,” she admits, like a woman who’s outgrown reverence but not respect.
And of course, there’s rhubarb. Lots of rhubarb. If you’ve followed her writing elsewhere, you’ll know the red stalk is practically her mascot. It’s here, too — tangy, persistent, and threaded throughout the year like a punchline you always welcome.
A Cookbook for the Human Spirit
This isn’t a glossy chef’s memoir or a minimalist lifestyle book. It’s a community cookbook filtered through the mind of someone who knows how to listen, celebrate, and grieve. Yes, grieve — because among the bonbons and bannocks, Weisblat weaves in glimpses of loss. She writes movingly but briefly of her mother’s declining health, and of friends who’ve passed. These moments never bog the book down, but they do give it weight. Like any good meal, the sweetness lands better with just a touch of salt.
The recipes themselves range from vintage Americana to globally-inspired adaptations. A few are quick tricks; others require a bit of love and time. Most feel like they came from someone’s handwritten recipe box — updated with modern sensibility, but not sanitized.
Final Bite
Pot Luck is more than a cookbook — it’s a companion. The kind you’d want to sit next to at a potluck, laughing over coleslaw and sharing gossip between bites of apple cake. You don’t have to know Tinky personally to appreciate her stories. There’s a warmth and rhythm in her writing that makes it feel like she’s speaking just to you — from a kitchen one town over.
The subtitle is no joke — Random Acts of Cooking — but they’re the kind of randomness that makes life interesting. And if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice there’s a method to the madness. The method is this: Cook something. Share it. Remember someone. Tell the story.
Because life — as Weisblat reminds us more than once — really is a pot luck.
