Leslie Karst got a once in a lifetime experience when she cooked dinner for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband, Marty, in 2006. Karst takes us through her preparations for the dinner, her tests of new dishes and all her thoughts and fears leading up to the big night. The insights into RBG were my favourite parts of the book, plus the inclusion of the recipes Karst made for RBG, however, I did feel like the book did lag and could have been trimmed down. In all I really enjoyed this book, which was a memoir wrapped about a life changing night.

Such a great story, a once in a lifetime experience for Leslie! I loved all the interludes about RBG and all of the prep work that was put in to that wonderful dinner. Thanks for including all of the recipes! I have loved all of Leslie's books and recipes. It was a great read which I couldn't put down.

Have you ever hosted a “high stakes” dinner party? Where the guest of honour is somebody famous who you admire? If so, what did you serve? I mean, what DO you serve at such a dinner?

@lesliekarst got the opportunity to find out when she (semi) jokingly suggests that she cook dinner for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) if she accepts Karst’s father’s invitation to speak at the university where he lectures. Not only does RBG accept the speaking invitation, but she also accepts Karst’s dinner invitation. Karst is shocked but springs into action trying to figure out what on earth she will cook. Luckily she has nine months to work on the perfect menu. Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law and Cooking for RBG is the story of those nine months.

This is a delightful read that will leave you hungry and/ or wanting to plan a dinner party of your own.

(and yes, Karst includes recipes for all the dishes that made the dinner in the book so you can recreate them!)

Disclosure: I received a digital advance copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to write a review, and neither the publisher nor author have reviewed the post before I published it. All opinions are my own.

When Leslie Karst offered to cook dinner for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she didn't realize how the experience would affect her for the next nine months. She spent hours exploring potential dishes, trying new recipes and obsessing over every aspect of the meal. This book details her inner thoughts and actions leading up to and including the big day.
The book started out strong. But I soon grew tired of the tedious negativity and indecision - maybe because that mirrors my inner thoughts and felt redundant. This book could have been an essay rather than a full book.
I liked the Interlude parts the best. Here, the author shares details about Justice Ginsburg's childhood, professional and personal life.
The recipes at the end add a nice touch to the book, too. I want to try that soup!

What an amazing experience! In "Justice Is Served: A Tale Of Scallops, The Law & Cooking for RBG," Leslie Karst recounts a dinner party she and her parents hosted for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband Marty in 2006. As a longtime admirer of Ginsburg, the account filled me with fangirl moments. Ginsburg's profound impact on women and underserved communities in the United States is monumental. Karst's book adeptly captures the magic of her months-long adventure of planning, preparing, and finally serving dinner for Justice Ginsburg and her husband Marty, offering a heartwarming and resonant narrative that leaves you with a warm glow of appreciation. As an added treat, Karst includes the recipes from her dinner for Justice Ginsburg at the end of the book.

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book centers around the author preparing for and ultimately preparing a dinner for Ruth Bader Ginsberg., who her father was “warm acquaintances” with. It’s an interesting memoir about a very specific event that gives us a glimpse into a memory and slice of time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! I’m a longtime RBG admirer and this is ish a fun, interesting book about both RGB and the author, centered around a time the author was fortunate enough to prepare dinner for RBG and her husband. Such a fun read, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Justice Is Served is an appealing and well told memoir by Leslie Karst. Released 4th April 2023, it's 288 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

It's always enjoyable to listen to enthusiasts waxing lyrical about the things that make their hearts beat faster. The author (who also writes mysteries) is a foodie lawyer from a family of lawyers. It's her familial connection via her father (a professor of law) through which she was able to meet Justice Ruth Bader and Marty Ginsburg and serve them a memorable meal.

This is mostly a story of the author finding herself and her way in life, and engaging her passion for culinary arts after working in the legal profession for a couple of decades. There are interludes throughout the book containing fascinating glimpses into RBG, her career, her fierce intelligence, and her humanity.

The author has included recipes for the dinner dishes mentioned in the book. They're elegant, refined, and delicious (and worthy of the Ginsburgs).

Four stars. This is an odd book, but nevertheless an interesting and worthwhile read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Wonderful memoir that details the wisdom and wit of RBG by the woman who served as her personal chef as she follows her true passion-food. I cannot recommend this heart-warming read enough. I think anyone would just fall in love with the message to live your best life and figure out how and the delicious sounding recipes are a bonus! I cannot recommend it highly enough! The read was courtesy of Netgalley

Leslie Karst's JUSTICE IS SERVED

This book serves lessons in pursuing a goal with determination, and insights about choosing work in one has a passionate interest. It began to make more sense to me about halfway in (confession to skimming through some to get to that point). My own cooking is of the quick, easy, “no one has died of my cooking” sort, so the intricate details and search for perfection were foreign to me, but the gathering to enjoy the meal was wonderful. The discussion of law and life, the hospitality to the agents, the appreciation of each other’s interests added to the deliciousness, as did the ongoing information about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and work, and the Q&A with the students.
The conclusion, that work that doesn’t interest is not the best choice, even with a good income, rings true. What is equality for if we don’t use it wisely? I did other work when there were no teaching jobs, and learned from that work, but truly came to my rightful life when I finally could teach, as I’d wanted to since kindergarten.
I’m left very happy that Karst followed her muse . . . and I’m off to find some more of her books.

Found this book to be so interesting. I was really surprised by how much I liked it. Love how they intertwined Ruth's life with their own.

I honestly did not know much about RBG and this book helped with that. But the real story of Leslie is fascinating and proves that you never know what your future is. No way she could ever had planned this 10 years ago.

The author has such a charming way of writing that I devoured this book in two sittings. Fun, sad and everything in between.

Excellent writing, excelling pace. Love it.

Really fast, fun read about hosting the Notorious RBG for dinner. I enjoyed reading the lead up, the moment, and the aftermath of such a momentous occasion. Leslie Karst’s writing is witty and the legal influence is undeniable—which I love, as an English major who is now a lawyer. I enjoyed sharing that excitement with the author and her family, she did a beautiful job conveying every little detail for a very well-rounded reading experience.

Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG will appeal to readers who love food memoirs and are also very interested in the law. Karst covers both in great detail, while also depicting the life and accomplishments of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in this story about a single dinner. In 2005, Karst’s father invited his colleague, Justice Ginsburg, to speak at UCLA’s law school. He asked his daughter if she’d like to prepare the meal, and Karst – an attorney and amateur chef – eagerly agreed. She then spent nine months planning a four-course meal for Justice Ginsburg and her husband.

Fair warning, if you’re mostly just interested in Ginsburg, this book may not work for you. Karst gets pretty “in the weeds” when it comes to the intricacies of planning this meal. There were a few points where it felt obsessive to me, but I liked the way the author herself seems to recognize when she’s going overboard a bit (for example, a hunt for the perfect 8 black plates). At times I thought, no way could I spend this amount of time planning a meal, but then I thought about spending a year planning a wedding, which really isn’t that different. It’s months of effort for a single day, and maybe later a lot of those small details won’t matter, but they certainly seem to at the time. I was pretty interested in Karst’s food and wine choices, as well as some unique elements of the meal, like whether they would need to feed the federal marshals that accompany Ginsburg.

I really liked the way Karst balanced biographical details about Ginsburg – she describes her upbringing, personal life, school and career – with her unique opportunity to get to know Ginsburg and her husband personally. There’s probably no shortage of biographical resources about Ginsburg, but Karst nicely balances historical information about Ginsburg and the circumstances of meeting her. I enjoyed the way Karst “fangirls” over Ginsburg, dropping her name to friends and vendors, as she can’t believe her amazing fortune at being able to cook dinner for someone she admires so much. I also appreciated her sense of humor and humility, like when she agonizes over saying something she thinks is foolish to Ginsburg or her husband.

I could relate to the way Karst talks about how much she cares about the law, yet she knows she doesn’t love her career the way her father and Ginsburg do. And I appreciated how this experience of planning a dinner might lead to her discovering something she truly loves. I also enjoyed the setting of the book, as Karst and her wife travel from their Northern California home to Los Angeles – but those details won’t mean as much if you don’t love California as I do.

At times, the pacing is uneven and many readers will want more of some things and a lot less of other things. It’s also not an action-packed read, but if you’re looking for something on the more relaxing side, something you can pick up and put down as you need to, this will work for you.

It’s tragic, of course, reading this today, knowing that Ginsburg died right before Trump left office and that some of her important work is being undone by the current Court. But this book gave me an even greater appreciation for Ginsburg, not just as a lawyer, a judge, and a civil rights activist, but as a person as well. A highly enjoyable read all the way around.

Note: I received an advanced review copy of this book from Spark Point Studio and publisher She Writes Press. This book was published April 4, 2023. Karst is also the author of the Sally Solari mystery series.

I liked that this was a good mix of biography of RBG and memoir of the author. The different food aspects added a nice touch to an interesting story, but I don't think the food aspect is the showstopper. Some parts are a bit over-explained, but I found myself enjoying the anecdotes woven throughout.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

This was really a sweet read. Fans of RBG and her husband Marty will really love this book. The inspiration that RBG gives her and all of us is really wonderful. Great tribute to a legend.

Meeting people who are passionate about their work can be inspiring any time, but if they’re famous for it too, the influence cannot be denied.

The author wrote an interesting story of her life, even while confessing it probably wasn’t the life of her dreams. She worked in a law office by day, but she didn’t have the passion for it that she saw in her father, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, or Ruth’s husband, tax attorney Marty Ginsberg. What she really sounded passionate about was planning the dinner she would be serving to the Ginsbergs at her parents’ house.

Karst was great at making the food and its preparation sound way more interesting than this reader usually considers it. She took into account the Ginsbergs’ preferences and limitations, and then set out to serve a truly impressive and memorable meal in the midst of a weekend of events in their honor. The book provided insight to Justice Ginsberg’s background (through entertaining interludes about her life and career), while also giving the first-person retelling of having spent a bit of time personally with the Justice.

The book was interesting and engaging to read and live the life of the author for a year, but it was also easy to imagine someone duplicating the dinner party through the actual recipes at the end. This book earned 3 out of 5 stars and inspired an appetite for insightful law conversation and a delicious meal.

As a lady lawyer and a criminal litigator, RBG holds a very special place in my heart as someone who paved the way for me to be able to be where I am today with my career. ⚖️🫶🏼

RBG themed swag? RBG books? You name it, I’ve got it. But this book is unlike anything else. A book about a lawyer and foodie prepping and hosting a dinner for RBG, including the recipes and photos? HOW NEAT! It’s so cool and fun to learn about your heroes from other people’s perspectives and I loved the untraditional and creative nature of this book. It also has Eat Pray Love vibes because it has some of Leslie’s journey to discovering herself and passion for cooking in this process.

I highly enjoyed this book. It felt like Julia child meets RBG and while that’s not something I ever expected that I needed in my life I throughly enjoyed every second of it. This book was like a warm hug on a rainy day and I enjoyed slipping into preparing for the dinner and learning more about everyone’s lives. I hope this author will write more.

Planning a dinner for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would send anyone into an emotional spiral, and author Leslie Karst is no different. Because of her attorney father, Leslie has the opportunity to cook this special meal. Through the pages of the book, we learn that Leslie, in addition to being an attorney has attended culinary school and she is spinning herself into a spiral trying to decide what is the best menu for the Justice. Entertaining and nerve wracking at the same time. I'd be a mess thinking about cooking for someone so famous.