Weekend Cooking: The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe by Catherine Greer

 

Audrey Sweetman-Brown has a pretty good life. She's in line to be promoted to Creative Director in the advertising agency where she has worked for the last twenty years, she has a good marriage and a beautiful home. Yes, she has faced some challenges, and some of those have left lasting impacts on her day to day life but she does her best to maintain her recovery every day.  She doesn't know it yet, but all of that is about to change, and not in a good way. By the end of the day, she is no longer employed, her marriage is over and she needs to get away to somewhere new quickly.

The only place she can think of is to head to Whitehaven Bay which is a small coastal town a couple of hours away from the city which is famous for its white sandy beach. It is somewhere that her mother used to take her as a child and that alone is enough to give comfort while she begins to sort her life out. And while she does that, she intends to bake up a storm. It is something that reminds her of her mother and bring her a little bit of joy.

There she meets a very colourful bunch of locals from Shez the wannabe business tycoon (who owns one small town motel) and her boyfriend Lem, Buddy who ends up being her landlord and who has a tendency to take his daily constitutional walk to the beach in the nude, Doctor Flood the handsome retired doctor and Billie, a non-binary teenager who seems to attract trouble wherever they go. And then there is Ruth, Billie's mother, who is a former judge and seems to be the only person that doesn't take to Audrey from day one.

Soon everyone is town is encouraging Audrey to start selling her delicious creations, but none of them expect her fortune cookies to go viral. Audrey hand makes her fortune cookies, impressing edible flowers into the cookies so they look beautiful. However, it is the fortunes inside that make these different. These are tell it like it is messages that say things like "Three can keep a secret....if you get rid of two." Suddenly, she has a start up business and she is struggling to keep up with demand.

Audrey is someone I related to. She is pretty much my age, and looking back on a career and wondering what step to take next, flirting with letting her hair go grey and more. I am very lucky as I don't need to face the same issues as she does in her marriage, but there were other aspects that I definitely recognised. Audrey doesn't always think everything through and as a result she doesn't always do the right thing, but she does try very hard to. 

I loved the secondary characters in this book. They all had their own secrets that they have managed to keep even in a small town when everyone knows everyone else's business. I think my favourite was Billie. They do seem to have the uncanny ability to bring trouble on themselves but the way that the author showed the struggle of not fitting in, not meeting their mother's expectation, of trying to do the things that they are passionate about and good at, and of just wanting to be seen for exactly who they are was written really well

Sometimes I am bit wary of a book where the back cover blurbs or the author recommendations tell you that a book is laugh out loud funny because a lot of the time, the book doesn't do that for me. This one absolutely did! There are a couple of times when there are some bikies from the Coffin Cheaters bikie gang turn up on the page and their parts, in particular, made me laugh out loud. And I also ended up reading those passages out loud to my husband!

You can tell that the baking in this book isn't something that the author has just shoe-horned in for story purposes. Greer is very clearly a baker, and she has very generously shared several recipes, most of which played an important part in the book. These include recipes for Cinnamon Buns with Cream Cheese Frosting, Chip, Chip, Hooray Cookies, Raspberry Shortbread Cookies with White Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Birthday Cake, the recipe for the fortune cookies and more. I read this book from the library but I am seriously tempted to buy the book just so I have some of these recipes. 

I thought I would make one of the recipes, but it was a challenge deciding which one. In the end I decided on the Raspberry Shortbread Cookies with White Chocolate and they are delicious. Every time he eats one my husband says something along the lines of these are so good!

This is Canadian-Australian Catherine Greer's first novel. She has written some kids books and some non fiction. I will definitely be looking forward to her next novel! 

I am sharing this review with Foodies Read hosted at Based on a True Story and New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. 

Rating 4.5/5

Weekly meals

Saturday - Barbecued Honey Chicken, Rice and Broccolini
Sunday -  Beef Pepper Casserole
Monday - Chicken Schnitzel Chips and Gravy
Tuesday - One Pot Pastichio
Wednesday - Chicken Enchiladas
Thursday - Curry Roast chicken and Masala roast potatoes
Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page