Zell is still recovering from the sudden death of her husband Nick, a photographer who died during a post-Katrina relief mission. Through a disastrous cooking experiment, she meets her next-door-neighbour, nine-year-old Ingrid, who believes celebrity chef Polly Pinch is her mother. With an eye on the $20,000 prize money (the amount Nick wanted to raise for the New Orleans victims), the two join forces to try to win her baking competition. This mixes the ingredients of a woman looking for a reason to live again with a girl desperate for female company. Stir in some quirky small townsfolk, a much-loved dog and some flashbacks to when Nick was alive and you get a debut novel that's full of warmth and soul.
