Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks to earn the love of her distracted mother, a chef, who is now packing her off to boarding school. Desperate to prove herself, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother's ideal meal. She signs up for cooking lessons from Victoria, an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant profoundly shaken by her husband's death. Soon these two women develop a deeper bond while their concoctions--cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, and "masgouf"--bake in Victoria's kitchen. But their individual endeavors force a reckoning with the past, the future, and the truth--whatever it might be.

Paperback, 2014