Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I got distracted and missed my post on Saturday because I was preparing for an overnight guest…who didn’t end up staying overnight. Ah, well. My food room/guest bedroom looks much neater than usual! Tonight, however, I am here and I am ready to review Louise Miller’s The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living. I’m not surprised my sister recommended this one–if Hallmark made a movie mashup of “While You Were Sleeping” and Anne of Green Gables–to be aired specifically on the Food Network–we’d probably end up with something like City Baker’s Guide. The food and the New England setting are definitely both characters in their own right (they deserve nothing less!), but the real story here is how someone alone in the world becomes part of a loving extended family. They might not be as humorous as Ox & Co.–“these mashed potatoes are so creamy!”–but on the other hand, they’re musical. (Also warm and accepting to an eyebrow-raising degree for a small Vermont town. Vermont is not an immediately-embracing-of-outsiders kind of state.) I feel like the main character’s flaws were pushed a tad aggressively at times, but overall, this was a feel-good novel that’s going to make you almost constantly hungry. (Did I mention that the author is a professional pastry chef?) It may also make a displaced New Englander desperately homesick, resulting in a number of impulse (maple-themed) purchases at Trader Joe’s, but hey–it’s a risk worth taking. (Because maple.) If you love food–or New England–or happy endings, this is definitely a book for you.