Berman Miranda - Hot mess kitchen: recipes for your delicious disastrous life

FOR MY HUSBAND, EVAN, WHOSE LOVE MAKES EVERY DAY BRIGHTER, SWEETER, AND MORE DELICIOUS.

GLM

FOR MY PARENTS, RUSSELL AND ANITA, WHOM I LOVE VERY MUCH. THEY HAVE SEEN ME THROUGH MY MESSIEST MOMENTS AND THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO READ THIS BOOK.

MPB

I wish I was a hot mess. Looking back on my twenties you probably couldve described me as an anxious mess, a workaholic mess, or maybe just a plain mess mess. Unfortunately, I lacked the sexy confidence it would have taken to qualify me as a hot one. So when Miranda and Gabi gave me their book, I was so excited. Reading it felt so aspirational. If I cant be a hot mess, at least I want to learn all the secrets of two bona fide ones (who also happen to be adorable and chic and blond).

And who wouldnt be excited to tear into Hot Mess Kitchen? This book is awesome. I came for the recipes and stayed for the funny, personal writing. How could you not love a book with recipes like Fuck It, Lets Just Get Stoned Nachos and All My Friends Are Married Mud Pie? Surely there is not one among you who has not felt both sentiments. You could buy this book and enjoy it without ever taking out your oven mitts.

But not me! I take my foreword-writing seriously, and I wanted to test out some recipes. A word about me: When it comes to cooking, I am really basic. I like things really obvious and hard to mess up. The extent of my cooking in my twenties was a piece of steak flattened into submission on my George Foreman Grill, then covered in Tabasco sauce. So I was a little worried about testing these out. The great news? Theyre legit and theyre easy AF (am I using that acronym right? Im old). My personal favorites were Schadenfreude Sundae and the Netflix and Chili Con Carne. If you think it sounds a little sad that I made a batch of delicious chili and ate it while watching Narcos alone on my sofa, then you dont know just how good that recipe is. I feel sad for you.

This is a great gift for your young, coolest friends and an even better gift for yourself. I cant wait for you to get your copy and promptly cover it in food stains, as I did. Joyfully.

H ello, beautiful reader,

Gabi and Miranda here. Welcome to our book! Thanks for buying it! Or maybe your cool aunt bought it for you as a graduation gift? Perhaps the delivery guy who drops off your weekly burrito gave it to you passive-aggressively with your last order? Maybe your mom sent it to you after having hacked into your email account and deciding you were incompetent. Are you yelling at your mom right now? Stop! Forgive her. But just for buying you this book (because you will like it). No need to forgive her for anything else. You can blame your parents, or anyone else, forever and never assume responsibility for anything! It will be healthy and fun. Just kidding. Unfortunately, at some point, you do have to grow up and take care of yourself. We know, we know, this is truly a horrific endeavor (no matter how old you actually are), so were here to help by teaching you how to cook. Were not asking you to open your mail every day or even to go through the giant stack of papers sitting on your bedroom floor. Were merely suggesting that you think about learning how to cook.

Keep reading! Dont run away because cooking seems scary and/or youre lazy. We get it and we agree: doing basically anything is terrifying. What are plans? Do you stick with them? You do? Youve left the house before? Whoa. Well, for the rest of us slackers, were going to demonstrate how to cook fun, tasty, mostly healthy food in a manageable way so that you actually do it when you say you will. The trick is breaking things down into steps and doing a little bit at a time, starting with what to buy at the grocery store and going all the way to using your culinary skills to trick someone into falling in love with you forever.

Cooking is a thing you can do to truly treat yourself well. Do you have some vision of a perfect, put-together, chic, awesome version of yourself? Are you worried youll never become her? The only way you will is if you start acting like her now. You, lovely reader, deserve to have a nice meal when you come home from work, or wherever you go during the day (we dont judge). It will make you feel better. We promise. Okay, we know this is all very corny, and were sorry about that. We promise the rest of the book wont be like this. Okay, it might have some moments, but everyone just chill.