Food, friendship, family, and a fresh start.

Shelby Preston, a young single mother, is at a crossroads. She feels suffocated by her hardscrabble life in rural Georgia and dreams of becoming a professional chef. Lord knows her family could use a pot of something good.

In Atlanta, Mallory Lakes is reeling from a bad breakup. The newspaper food columnist is also bracing for major changes at work that could put her job at risk. Determined to find the perfect recipe for how to reinvent herself, she gets involved in the growing farm-to-table movement. But an emotional setback threatens to derail everything she’s worked for.

Shelby and Mallory couldn’t be more different. But through their shared passion for food, they form an unlikely friendship—a bond that just might be their salvation.

This heartwarming and lyrical tale reminds us that family isn’t necessarily whom you’re related to—it’s whom you invite to your table.

This is a new release of a previously published edition titled Simmer and Smoke; it contains twenty delightful recipes.

<p>Peggy Lampman was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. After earning a bachelor’s degree in communications, summa cum laude, from the University of Michigan, she moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter and photographer for a public relations firm. After moving back to Ann Arbor, her college town, she opened a specialty foods store, the Back Alley Gourmet. Years later, Peggy sold the store and started writing a weekly food column for the <i>Ann Arbor News</i> and <i>MLive</i>. She is married, has two children, and divides her time between Alabama and Michigan. Lampman writes the popular blog www.dinnerfeed.com; <i>The Promise Kitchen</i> is her first novel. Peggy will donate 10 percent of her net profits from the sale of this book to the Southern Poverty Law Center.</p>