The Kitchen Daughter

Julie & Julia meets Jodi Picoult in this poignant and delectable novel with recipes, chronicling one womans journey of self-discovery at the stove. After the unexpected death of her parents, shy and sheltered twenty-six-year-old Ginny Selvaggio, isolated by Aspergers Syndrome, seeks comfort in family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonnas soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warningbefore vanishing like steam from a cooling dish. A haunted kitchen isnt Ginnys only challenge. Her domineering sister Amanda insists on selling their parents house in Philadelphia, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isnt sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesnt know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her fathers photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and theres only one way to get answers: cook from dead peoples recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them. Offering a fascinating glimpse into the unique mind of a woman suffering from Aspergers and featuring evocative and mouth-watering descriptions of food, this lyrical novel is as delicious and joyful as a warm brownie.