American Cookery bursts with the joy of cooking and the spice of life—a feast of friendship and family.

High-spirited Eden Douglass is born into a contentious California clan full of headstrong women who vie for her loyalty. The Douglass women are known to borrow trouble as well as time and money. As a child, Eden’s hungers are satisfied with merely having enough to eat. As an adult, her appetite for adventure leads her to serve on the European Front, to elope to Mexico with a charismatic film maker, and become a producer in the golden age of television. Eden’s life is seasoned with a rich cast of lively characters. All have stories. Some have legends.

Each chapter is followed by a recipe. Readers can share and savor Emotional Cornbread, Book Club Gingerbread, Parti-Colored Salsa, Figs Napoleon, Stella’s Sauce and Ginny Doyle’s Cowgirl Chili. American Cookery celebrates those women and men whose cooking forges connection across time and miles and through generations.

Animated as a family reunion, intimate as a lover's picnic, American Cookery is a novel to relish and share, satisfying stories in many flavors, and one woman’s journey through tumultuous times.