The Kitchen Daughter

Jael McHenry

Apr 2011 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Julie & Julia meets Jodi Picoult in this poignant and delectable novel with recipes, chronicling one woman’s journey of self-discovery at the stove.

After the unexpected death of her parents, shy and sheltered twenty-six-year-old Ginny Selvaggio, isolated by Asperger’s Syndrome, seeks comfort in family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning—before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.

A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister Amanda insists on selling their parents’ house in Philadelphia, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.

Offering a fascinating glimpse into the unique mind of a woman suffering from Asperger’s and featuring evocative and mouth-watering descriptions of food, this lyrical novel is as delicious and joyful as a warm brownie.

Ratings and reviews

A heart wrenching roller coaster of emotions from complete sadness to a will to fit for what is right, this book is a journey worth taking. Told from the heart of a young adult woman who has lived with her parents her entire life due to her special "personality" or as we may now call it - Aspergers. A love for learning about the people who live with Asperger's, I am drawn to read books where I can inhabit their mind and learn their thought process. Ginny, an older sister, yet always treated as special and probably less self suficient, I enjoyed the juxtaposition of her being the older sister, but in a different respect a younger sister too. As a sister, I find the research done on birth order and traits that dominate where you are in the line both intriguing and often times beyond truthful. I am the older sister of the pair and I do feel as though if our parents were to leave us behind that I would be responsible, even though my sister is married and has a family. As the first born it was born into me that I am to always take care of my sister and look out for her - how weird would it be to have our birth order remain the same, but the roles reversed. I can't imagine. A book for the women readers - those who love to learn about a family's heartbreak and how the pull together to overcome obstacles, this was truly a great read. I can't wait to pass it on to both my sister and mom.

About the author

Jael McHenry is a talented and enthusiastic amateur cook who writes about food and cooking. She is a monthly pop culture columnist and editor-in-chief of Intrepid Media, online a IntrepidMedia.com. Her work has appeared in publications such as the North American Review, Indiana Review, and the Graduate Review at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. She lives in New York City.