[What's for Dinner?] is one of those small masterpieces destined to gain a permanent cult following…. Schuyler focuses a Flaubertian magnifying glass on a very ordinary bunch of suburbanites who like to dissect each other's doings with the perseverance of Compton-Burnett characters, but whose speech is American split-level. Alchoholism, insanity and death are on the menu, along with sweet-and-sour domestic bliss, and a great deal of boredom, but the final effect is gentle and funny, thanks to Schuyler's wonderful knack for putting words together: he is, of course, one of America's foremost poets.

John Ashbery, "In Absentia: Some Books of the Year; 'What's for Dinner?'" in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1979; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 4001, November 23, 1979, p. 5.