Simply from Scratch by Alicia Bessette

A year after her husband is killed while doing post-Katrina relief work, Zell is still mourning his loss - and trying to get on with her own life and is isolated from friends (who were with her husband on the trip) and family. When her neighbor's copy of a cooking magazine is mistakenly delivered to her home, she decides on a whim to enter a cooking contest. The reason? The $20,000 prize is just the amount her husband wanted to raise to help further Katrina relief. The problem? She doesn't cook. At all.

Enter Ingrid, the 9-year-old daughter next door. Convinced that the author of the cooking magazine is her mother, she offers to help Zell with her project. As they try to develop the perfect recipe, an unlikely friendship forms. And Zell begins the long journey from grieving to living.

I suppose this novel is fairly predictable. There are a number of local "characters" in the book, all of them likable. I found myself rooting for all of them. Although at times, I wanted to shake Zell and tell her to just get on with it, the author does a good job of showing someone working through the grieving process.

I know it's an overused phrase but this really is a "quick read" - and not a waste of time.