Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks »

Lisa Lampanelli skyrocketed to comedy fame thanks to her stellar performances on the Comedy Central roasts of Jeff Foxworthy, Pamela Anderson, William Shatner, and Flavor Flav, among others. A regular guest on The Tonight Show and The Howard Stern Show, Lisa continues to sell out theaters across the country with her sweetly served but acerbic stand-up wit. Her CD/DVD Dirty Girl was nominated for a Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 2007 and her first HBO special, Long Live the Queen, premiered to spectacular numbers in 2009. This fall, she will shoot a one-hour stand-up special for Comedy Central, scheduled for release in early 2011.

An inside look at the life of Comedy's Lovable Queen of Mean, Lisa Lampanelli, as she dishes on everything from relationships to food, fat, and rehab.

In her jaw-droppingly hilarious, gloriously, and unabashedly politically incorrect memoir, Lisa reveals all—including her dysfunctional childhood and her struggles with addictions to food and hot guys. By telling her story in a very real, very candid way, Lisa shows her audience that it's okay to be yourself, even if it's just one rehab stint at a time.

Publishers Weekly

Only a few pages into the first chapter, the reader becomes aware that the title does not indicate a collection of dessert recipes but instead refers to comedian Lampanelli's past experiences having sex with black men, which she recalls as her “chocolate diet”: “As I lost more than 60 pounds, I ran an Underground Railroad through my apartment.” After more than 30 pages on her search for the “perfect black man,” Lampanelli moves on to outline her standup career, from handling hecklers to doing the Tonight Show. Her breakthrough came with a 2002 Friars Club roast of Chevy Chase, and since then, as an insult comic, she has become a familiar face at numerous roasts, billing herself as “Comedy's Lovable Queen of Mean.” Seeking the roots of her humor, she recalls her childhood as an “attention whore”: “Eating to get attention is a behavior that I continued into my high school days.” She follows her memories of “fat rehab” with a variety of topics, from the Virgin Mary to vegans. Much is quite funny, and Lampanelli never pulls her punches. Despite her raw language and raucous writing, honest reflections and stark self-insights emerge as she probes her past. (Sept.)

part 1 What I'm Known For

Chapter 1 Once You Go Black… 3

Chapter 2 Chocolate, Please 19

Chapter 3 Popping My Cherry: Important Firsts in the Life of Comedy's Lovable Queen of Mean 37

Chapter 4 Mixed Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire 67

part 2 How the Hell I Turned Out This Way

Chapter 5 Macy's and Hamburger's 91

Chapter 6 Sit, Kneel, Stand 103

Chapter 7 School Daze, or I'll Have an Honor Roll with Extra Jelly, Please 115

part 3 Comedian, Heal Thyself!

Chapter 8 My Big Fat Italian Bottom-Tommy and the Crash of 2007 131

Chapter 9 Comedy's Lovable Queen of Denial 147

Chapter 10 Fat Girl, Interrupted 167

Chapter 11 Porkers, Pukers, and Purgers 183

Chapter 12 Escape from Wickenburg 199

part 4 It's Only Upward from Here! The Future of Lisa Lampanelli 221

part 5 Lisa's Rules to Live By 229

Acknowledgments 291