Simply from Scratch by Alicia Bessette

This was a wonderful book. The characters were engaging and likable. Zell has been a young widow for a year. She has been unable to get through her grief and is keeping family and friends at a distance. She does however, make two new friends - her neighbors, nine-year-old Ingrid and her father Garrett. They meet when the firemen are putting out the fire in Zell's oven. She is not much of a cook and since Nick's death she had not turned on the oven. Unfortunately when she pre-heated the oven she was unaware that Nick had hidden a present for her inside. The package is not totally destroyed but Bessette makes us wait until the end of the book to find out what was in it! The story is about the developing relationship between Zell and Ingrid as they try to bake a winning recipe for a contest. It is nice to read about people and families who are not dysfunctional - just prone to making a few bad decisions like the rest of us!