A fast-paced and fabulously entertaining story of finding yourself through food.
While I found Ruthie frustrating at times, her journey through the grief of losing her beloved Bubbe and her finding independence through cooking was inspiring and thoroughly entertaining.
This book was funny, emotional, infuriating, hopeful, chaotic, and fabulous!

I love books with a focus on food and romance and this book was just what I wanted! The romance was so cute and the reading was so easy to read!

I requested Off Menu on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review because I’m a huge fan of foodie fiction.

After Ruthie’s much-loved grandmother passes away and leaves her $62k, she quits her boring office job and decides to follow her passion for cooking by enrolling at culinary school.

I’m going to start with the parts of the book that I really enjoyed and those were the scenes where she’s learning about the techniques for French cuisine and later when she’s working at the café and devising new recipes. I also liked her friendships with Trish and Lily and how they helped Ruthie prioritise herself outside of her relationships.

Off Menu is written diary-style a la Bridget Jones’s Diary and this was where it fell short for me because Ruthie’s two boyfriends: Jeff and Dean lack any of the charm of Bridget’s love interests.

When Ruthie meets Jeff at culinary school, he’s already got a girlfriend, Katie. Despite all this, Jeff still tries to hook up with Ruthie when they’re travelling for a competition. He also has a drug habit and steals half her grandmother’s inheritance because the password for her bank account could be guessed by a stranger who spends fifteen minutes in her company. I thought it was really strange that her family tried to encourage her to forgive him on the basis that he cooked them an amazing fried chicken once.

Dean, who Ruthie met on holiday in Thailand and reconnects with after Jeff goes to rehab lives down to all the worst stereotypes of vegans. He’s also arrogant enough to think that Ruthie should just quit her job and leave behind her friends and family in Toronto to move to Chicago for him because his career is so-called more important.

I don’t know, maybe it’s an age thing but I just couldn’t understand why Ruthie bothered with either Jeff or Dean. It’s a shame because her experiences at the culinary school with Chef Antoine and her travels with Trish and Lily were really fun and I’d have liked to read more of them.

Ruthie Cohen is stuck in a boring data entry job, daydreaming about food, her best friends, and whether her vacation fling, Dean, could have been something more. Then, her beloved Bubbe leaves her a surprise inheritance with one rule: follow her passion. A few drinks later, she’s signed up for culinary school, rocking chef’s whites, and ready to chase her foodie dreams. But things heat up fast—especially with Jeff, her swoon-worthy cooking partner.

I was into this at first—I liked the chemistry and friendship between Ruthie and Jeff—but somewhere along the way, it started to lose me. Some chapters dragged, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. That said, there were a few surprises that kept things interesting.

By the end, I really felt for Ruthie, and I was glad her friends helped her figure out what she needed to do. Not my favorite read, but it had its moments!

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to check this one out

The original premise of Ruthie leaving her unfulfilling job becomes an anecdote to the deeper story that develops of relationships, friendship, and finding purpose and fulfillment. Ruthie’s foray into cooking school weaves a storyline that doesn’t follow a typical path- maintaining a premise that is both fun to read and unpredictable. The relationship development turns into a storyline that keeps Ruthie’s spirit and character someone you want to root for! The food descriptions and cooking school scenes made this even more enjoyable! I really enjoyed this and would recommend!

Off Menu by Amy Rosen is a delightful and humorous novel that follows Ruthie Cohen, a twenty-something data entry minion for a second-tier movie app. Ruthie spends her days dreaming about the amazing meals she plans to cook for her best friends, Trish and Lilly, while pining for Dean, her vacation fling from six months earlier. When Ruthie's beloved grandmother, Bubbe Bobby Grace, passes away and leaves her an inheritance of $62,873.42 with instructions to "follow your passion," Ruthie decides to pursue her love for cooking. She enrolls in culinary school, where she meets Jeff, a super hunky (but taken) musician who quickly becomes a distraction. As Ruthie navigates her new life, balancing school, cooking, career planning, and her feelings for both Dean and Jeff, she learns valuable lessons about following her dreams and finding happiness. The novel is filled with humor, heart, and mouth-watering descriptions of food, making it a perfect read for anyone who loves a good laugh and a good meal.

Look for my full review in Library Journal
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Quickly, I adored this! So laugh out loud funny. Perfect for foodies and rom-com readers alike.

An enjoyable read. At times it seems like the book drags on but overall a good read. The main characters, Ruthie and Jeff, definitely have chemistry but there are many obstacles in their way. Jeff turns out to be someone completely different. I would recommend.

3.5 Stars rounded up to 4

If this novel were solely about food and the protagonist’s pursuit of her passion for cooking, I would have rated it five stars. However, it lost some of its appeal with the immaturity regarding drinking, dating apps, casual sex, and a distorted view of relationships. I gritted my teeth to get through the first few chapters and felt gratified by the focus on the descriptions of cooking school and the injection of humor through the wisdom of Bubbe Bobby Grace and Chef Antoine.

Ruthie Cohen is unhappy in her career (if you could call it that) and lives to travel with her best friends. When her beloved grandmother (the above-mentioned Bubbe) dies and leaves her $62K, Ruth quits her job and enrolls in culinary school to follow her passion for cooking. What ensues is an adventure in the techniques of French cuisine coupled with rocky romances. As Ruthie’s confidence and self-esteem grow through her successes she begins to realize through the ongoing support of her friends, that her fulfillment is grounded in authentic expression of her creativity and talent - independent of any man in her life.

Overall, this was an entertaining read despite the slow and somewhat distasteful beginning.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

I just finished Off Menu by Amy Rosen. It was a great read that I enjoyed. I recommend this book on publication day.

I absolutely loved the cover of this book that is displayed on Netgalley. It displays colorful food, lipstick, friends/family, and alcoholic beverages which is a recipe for fun! I enjoyed all of the bits about culinary and all of the fun things she baked. I did however have a few things that I disliked about this book.

Ruthie is the main character who doesn't seem to know what she wants to do in life. Her grandmother passes away and leaves her $62k behind. Ruthie decides that she wants to enroll in culinary school since she has always had a passion for cooking. She meets a classmate named Jeff and they instantly hit things off as culinary partners and potentially more. Ruthie learns shortly after meeting Jeff that he is taken. Does that stop them? Nope. That is one of the biggest issues I had with this book. I really don't enjoy reading about cheating or flirting with someone when they are already taken. While Jeff's definition of cheating is only sex, Ruthie doesn't seem to have any morals as she is head over heels for Jeff and will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Jeff does break up with his girlfriend and chooses Ruthie in the end and they have some spicy moments together. As Ruthie finishes making some cakes for a competition, Jeff realizes that a jar of his special white powder has gone missing and he panics. Jeff explains to Ruthie that he has a drug problem and has relapsed and that she has unknowingly made icing with cocaine. This felt so left field and just such a huge red flag that she should have dropped him there. However, she continues to be desperate and wants him so badly that she says they should stay together while he goes to rehab. Jeff makes a rule that he is allowed to write letters to her, but that she can't respond. Ruthie is fine with that until she realizes that Jeff has also managed to steal $30,000 from her bank account. She can't seem to get the money back because she accidentally told him her password to her bank account while she was drunk. With a password like Snickers, her favorite candy bar, I almost felt like she deserved that life lesson. With all these red flags, her family still gaslights her into thinking that maybe they are meant to be. Her family tells her not to worry about money and that they have never seen her as happy as they have when she is with Jeff.

As Jeff is in rehab, Ruthie gets a call from a previous man that she met on vacation in Thailand named Dean. Before Jeff, Ruthie was head over heels for Dean also and couldn't imagine life without him despite their short relationship. Dean and Ruthie hook up again and start dating. Somehow Ruthie knows nothing about him and realizes he is a vegan and that is almost the end of the world for her. Since she is a cook and loves to use raw milk and raw cheese in recipes, she feels as if she can't look past him being a vegan. I felt that this was super shallow of her and if you really care about someone you can have different opinions and lifestyles and still make things work. She slowly got over her issue with him being vegan and continues to focus on buying a bakery that she has been working at for the past year. Dean gets an amazing job offer to become a doctor in another city and tells Ruthie she has to come with him and that she can open a shop near there. I do admire that she finally stood up for herself and told him that she wasn't open to doing that and was going to be taking over the bakery she was at. Dean was wrong to just assume she would pack things up and go where ever he went without discussing things with her first.

Jeff finally manages to get out of rehab and claims that he is such a better human now and him and Ruthie can live happily ever after now. Ruthie does have a bit of common sense and doesn't fall for his shenanigans. Jeff says he will spend the rest of his days trying to win her back. He does at least pay her back $10,000 of the $30,000 he stole from her. Not with his own hard earned money though of course. He had to take a loan from his family who is helping him pay his debts to all of the people he owes money to.

Thank goodness her friends finally decide to step in and remind her that men aren't everything. They save her from destroying her life anymore than she possibly has and that is the best part of the book for me. Realizing that both of these men are extremely toxic and that she is better off right where she is and focusing on her own goals. Thank you to Netgalley, ECW Press, and Amy Rosen for an ARC of this book. This review is my own honest opinion.

This was a pretty good book! Our main character does have a ton of things going on in her life, and she’s struggling with balancing them all. I like that the book was pretty lighthearted, and it had a little bit of romance and a lot of different themes. I like the themes of friendship, growing up, work life, balance, and relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!