How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [0]
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
“The Lost Recipe for Happiness is a delectable banquet for the reader.… This book is as delicious as the recipes interspersed throughout an unforgettable story.”
—SUSAN WIGGS, New York Times bestselling author
“The Lost Recipe for Happiness is utterly magical and fantastically sensual. It’s as dark and deep and sweet as chocolate. I want to live in this book.… A total triumph.”
—SARAH ADDISON ALLEN, New York Times bestselling author
“Beautiful writing, good storytelling and an endearing heroine set against the backdrop of Aspen, Colorado, are highlights of O’Neal’s novel. A tale that intertwines food, friendship, passion and love in such a delectable mix is one to truly savor until the very last page.”
—Romantic Times
“Will appeal to women’s fiction fans and foodies, who will enjoy the intriguing recipes … laced through the book.”
—St. Petersburg Times
The Secret of Everything
“O’Neal has created a powerful and intriguing story rich in detailed and vivid descriptions of the Southwest.”
—Booklist
“Readers will identify with this story and the multilayered characters.… And with some of the tantalizing recipes for dishes served at the 100 Breakfasts Café included, O’Neal provides a feast not only for the imagination but the taste buds as well.”
—Romantic Times
“Barbara O’Neal has masterfully woven local culture, the beauty of nature, her love of food and restaurants, and a little romance into this magnificent novel.”
—Fresh Fiction
BY BARBARA O’NEAL
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
The Secret of Everything
How to Bake a Perfect Life
How to Bake a Perfect Life is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2011 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Samuel
All rights reserved.
Cover design: Brigid Pearson
Cover images: © Freegine/Alamy (woman), © Joanna Totolici/Getty Images (dog)
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
O’Neal, Barbara
How to bake a perfect life : a novel / Barbara O’Neal.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90816-9
1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction 2. Parenting—Fiction. 3. Women—Conduct of life—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.I485H69 2011
813′.54—dc22 2010033811
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
For my mother, Rosalie Hair,
who is nothing like any of the mothers in this book.
Well, except for maybe that earring thing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, a zillion people helped with this book. Many, many thanks to my sister Cathy Stroo, who helps me with medical knowledge on nearly every book, and this time helped me understand the struggles of burn patients. For help with the process of how wounded soldiers are moved through the hospital system, I’m extremely grateful to MaryAnn Phillips, who heads up the volunteer organization Soldiers’ Angels (www.soldiersangels.org), a valuable and devoted group who serve soldiers and their families at one of the worst times in a soldier’s life. All mistakes or missteps are entirely my own. Thanks also to Terence. Muchas gracias, my friend.
My grandmother Madoline O’Neal Putman, and the late great Merlin Murphy O’Hare kept me company all through the writing of this book. Miss you both lots and lots.
And, as ever, thanks to Christopher Robin, who tastes everything even if he is sure he won’t like it.
Contents
Cover
Praise of the Novels of Barbara O’Neal
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Step One - Starter
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter