Visitors to Miracle Springs, North Carolina, find themselves ogling the display shelves in The Gingerbread House Bakery. They’ve heard that no one can bake a scone quite like Hester Winthrop. Her pastry is feather-light and buttery. Her flavors are fresh, vibrant, and perfectly spiced. If you’re lucky, she might make you a Comfort Scone—a scone […] Read More

Then Malabar ordered a power pack in her usual rapid-fire staccato: “A dry Manhattan. Standing up. With a twist. No ice. No fruit.” When the waiter tilted his head quizzically, Malabar exhaled her annoyance and repeated the order at exactly the same speed as she had the first time. I asked for a Taj Mahal […] Read More

While researching The Winemaker’s Wife, I spent time in the Champagne region of France, where the novel takes place. I was especially lucky to be the guest of a lovely young woman named Virginie Bergeronneau, who works at her family-owned champagne house, Champagne F. Bergeronneau-Marion, based in the town of Ville-Dommange, where the fictional Champagne […] Read More

My childhood dog was an Airedale terrier named Muggs, to whom I dedicated my book. She loved pancakes more than any other food, and, in fact, her last meal was “hotcakes,” as my mother calls them. My current dog, Comet, was cut from the same cloth apparently, because she loves pancakes as well; in our […]

Every recipe in my family cookbook, Cooking With My Sisters, has a name, and not just the one to describe the food, but a name designated to the creator, the cook, or the person in the kitchen who took the age old instructions handed down on bits of paper and at long last, perfected the dish. […] Read More

  From Delia Owens: Cooking is a huge part of Kya’s life in this novel. The reader gets to hear about all of the meals she makes for herself because she has to learn to cook and become independent at an incredibly young age. These recipes are some of her favorites and are a part […] Read More

      In Lifelines, Louise falls in love with German drummer Dieter Hinterkopf when she travels from  Oregon to Düsseldorf to study art in 1971. The Hinterkopf Geburtstagskuchen is Dieter’s family‘s traditional birthday cake. Louise’s mother-in-law, Hannelore, instructs Louise to make the cake for her Dieter, part of the complicated family history that Hannelore shares. The […] Read More