Eat Drink And Be Kinky

Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky (1999) – Kinky Friedman & Mike McGovern
Simon & Schuster • ISBN: 0684856743 • Condition: Used
Texan attitude, questionable nutrition, and full-fat personality, from Crappy Old Books

Some cookbooks gently suggest you “elevate your supper”.
This one suggests you:

• Open something strong,

• Lower your standards,

• And accept that dinner might arrive with cigar smoke, country music, and at least one story you cannot repeat at work.

Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky is not your average collection of recipes. It’s more like:

A chaotic dinner party in book form,
Hosted by Kinky Friedman,
With Mike McGovern in the kitchen trying to keep things legal, edible, and vaguely written down.

So what actually is this book?

It’s part:

• Cookbook

• Road diary

• Bar culture anthropology

• Tribute to food, booze, friends, and the sort of nights that never end with “and then we went home early to get some rest.”

Inside you’ll find:

• Recipes that range from “surprisingly decent” to “are we absolutely sure this isn’t a dare?”

• Anecdotes involving musicians, misfits, drifters, Texans, New Yorkers, and people who shouldn’t be left alone with an open bar

• Drinking lore that pairs beverages with life choices, most of them slightly ill-advised

• Kinky being… Kinky:

  • Politically incorrect,

  • Philosophically sideways,

  • And committed to the notion that food and drink should come with stories, not calorie counts.

This is less “Rachel Ray” and more “If Hunter S. Thompson wrote a community cookbook.”

Sample experience (emotional, not culinary)

Expect to encounter:

• Dishes with names that sound like inside jokes between inebriated band members

• Cooking instructions that assume you have:

  • A frying pan

  • Some form of liquor

  • And a tolerance for improvisation

• Stories where the recipe is almost background to the people, places, and poor decisions that surround it

You’ll get:

• A strong sense of time and place – smoky bars, cramped kitchens, long nights

• The feeling that “exact measurements” are for cowards and pastry chefs

• The creeping suspicion that following some of these recipes exactly might not be medically endorsed, but will definitely be entertaining

Who is this for?

Not for:

• Clean eaters

• Nutritional puritans

• People who say “I’m doing Dry January” without flinching

Definitely for:

• Fans of Kinky Friedman’s writing or music

• People who believe a good meal is improved by bad behaviour

• Readers who enjoy cookbooks they might actually read in bed, not just consult for roast times

• Anyone who thinks recipes should come with punchlines, not just prep times

This is part literary curiosity, part booze-soaked family album, part “maybe don’t try this on a first date.”

Condition: Used (like your liver after attempting the cocktails)

When Crappy Old Books says Used, we mean:

• The cover has lived – maybe a soft crease, a little edge rub, the cookbook equivalent of a slightly singed bar towel.

• The spine shows reading lines – evidence that someone has already flipped back and forth between the recipes and the stories, probably while laughing and/or pouring another drink.

• All pages present and attached – no missing signature dish, no vanished cocktail formula, no crucial paragraph torn out by an over-zealous fan.

• Inside, you may find:

  • Mild page toning

  • The odd thumbed corner

  • Possibly very faint signs it was once consulted in an actual kitchen or, more likely, near a fridge at 1 a.m.

No horror-show stains, no pages welded together with mysterious sauce, no margin notes saying “THIS KILLED DAVE”. Just a properly Used, fully readable copy with that “I’ve been part of someone’s bad ideas” energy.

Why you might actually want this

Buy this if you:

• Want a cookbook that doubles as a conversation piece

• Enjoy Kinky Friedman’s brand of humour, which sits somewhere between barroom philosopher and outlaw uncle

• Are building a collection of eccentric, personality-driven cookbooks

• Need something to read while deciding whether making that chili at midnight is a brilliant or catastrophic idea

It’s ideal for:

• Gifts to people who already own too many sensible cookbooks

• Late-night reading when you’re hungry-but-not-enough-to-actually-cook

• Anyone who suspects food, drink, and stories belong together on the same messy table

The boozy basics

• Title: Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky

• Authors: Kinky Friedman & Mike McGovern

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (1999)

• ISBN: 0684856743

• Condition: Used – read, lightly worn, structurally intact, slightly dangerous

Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky: for when you want recipes, anecdotes, and questionable life advice garnished with lime and sarcasm. Supplied in honestly Used condition by Crappy Old Books, who recommend consuming the book responsibly and everything else at your own risk.

Keep browsing: See more Food books Other books by Kinky Friedman, Mike McGovern