★ Justice Is Served
A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG
Leslie Karst, She Writes Press (APR 4) Softcover $17.95 (288pp) 978-1-64742-458-9
In the delightful, enthralling memoir Justice Is Served, Leslie Karst describes her nine-month endeavor to plan an elegant, four-course dinner for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband Marty.
When Karst’s father, a renowned UCLA law professor, invited his friend Justice Ginsburg to speak at the law school in 2006, the invitation included dinner served by his daughter at their Santa Monica home. While Karst had a lifelong passion for cooking and regularly hosted dinner parties, she had never attempted a meal this ambitious. Her work was as a research and appellate attorney for a Santa Cruz law firm. With self-deprecating humor, Karst concocts an entertaining, engrossing page-turner that documents months of planning and soul-searching.
The book relates the delicious intricacies of choosing the menu—seared scallops, butternut squash soup (based on a French Laundry recipe), spinach salad with blood oranges, and blackened ahi tuna—as well as the quest to source ingredients, determine wine pairings, and select china and garnishes to showcase each course. Karst turned to her partner Robin for help, as well as friends, parents, and food and wine experts in her community for advice. The adventure ended in an extraordinary evening with the Ginsburgs and in Karst’s renewed resolve to find a vocation that she “truly loved—as much as Ruth did the law.” Fascinating sidebars include striking views of Justice Ginsburg (covering her love of opera, her admiration for Justice Sandra Day O’connor, and her reflections on Roe vs. Wade) and Marty’s inspiring support of her (including assuming cooking duties after his wife served a “dinosaur” of a tuna casserole).
Justice Is Served is a suspenseful, exhilarating memoir; Karst relays her determination to serve the “perfect” meal to RBG alongside an uplifting, enlightening portrayal of one of the most admired justices in the history of the Supreme Court.