Download PDF Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro
As known, adventure and also encounter about driving lesson, home entertainment, as well as expertise can be gained by only reading a publication Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro Also it is not directly done, you could know more about this life, regarding the world. We offer you this proper as well as easy method to get those all. We provide Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro and also numerous book collections from fictions to scientific research whatsoever. One of them is this Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro that can be your companion.
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro
Download PDF Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro
Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro. Happy reading! This is just what we desire to claim to you that enjoy reading a lot. Exactly what concerning you that claim that reading are only responsibility? Don't bother, reading behavior should be begun from some specific factors. One of them is reviewing by obligation. As what we intend to provide here, guide qualified Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro is not type of obligated book. You can appreciate this publication Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro to read.
Getting the publications Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro now is not kind of challenging means. You can not just going for book shop or collection or loaning from your good friends to review them. This is an extremely simple way to specifically get guide by on-line. This online publication Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro can be among the alternatives to accompany you when having downtime. It will not waste your time. Believe me, the publication will reveal you brand-new point to check out. Simply spend little time to open this on the internet book Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro and review them wherever you are now.
Sooner you obtain guide Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro, faster you could enjoy reading guide. It will be your resort to maintain downloading and install the publication Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro in supplied web link. This way, you could actually choose that is worked in to obtain your personal book online. Below, be the very first to obtain guide qualified Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro and also be the very first to know just how the author suggests the notification and also understanding for you.
It will have no doubt when you are going to pick this e-book. This impressive Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro e-book can be checked out totally in particular time depending upon exactly how frequently you open up as well as review them. One to bear in mind is that every publication has their very own manufacturing to obtain by each viewers. So, be the excellent visitor and be a far better individual after reviewing this publication Icing On The Cake, By Laura Castoro
When Liz Talbot's husband left her for a woman half her age, Liz put all her passions into her bakery. The problem is that fad diets and fitness crazes are ruining sales and she's barely staying afloat. Liz's luck seems to be changing when her ex dies without changing his will, leaving her the main beneficiary. Unfortunately one of the things she inherits is the advertising agency she left behind to pursue her dream of baking. Her partner? The newly widowed husband stealer—Brandi, with a heart over the i. As the new co-owner of Talbot Advertising, in the toilet since the death of her ex (that's right, she's now the proprietor of two failing businesses), Liz is more determined than ever to break out and make a name for herself as an artisan baker extraordinaire, providing her products can catch the eye of the Nabisco Food scout who is as elusive as he is mysterious.
- Sales Rank: #1575958 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-08-15
- Released on: 2012-08-15
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Booklist
The author of A New Lu (2005) returns with a tale of two businesses run by one woman. After her husband left her for the much younger Brandi, Liz Talbot throws herself into her burgeoning venture, the No-Bagel Bakery. Liz is hoping, despite the lingering fear of all things containing carbs, that her store will succeed nationally and be made into a franchise. But ex-hubby Teddy manages to throw a wrench in her plans when he has a fatal fall while on a mountain bike ride with his new wife. Liz is stunned to learn he hasn't changed his will, leaving her in charge of Talbot Advertising, the company they built together. Brandi is none too pleased, and immediately gets an injunction, forcing the unlikely pair to work together. Castoro's winning tale of a woman coming into her own in midlife will no doubt make fans of readers searching for novels that go beyond the usual focus of chick lit. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
" . . . entertaining look at how one woman's life dramatically changes as she faces 50." -- Booklist on A New Lu
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Pritikin diet almost killed me. Then along came Atkins, followed by the Stillman, Scarsdale, Hollywood, ketogenic and Zone diets. The South Beach was almost my coup de grâce. I've fought the good fight with all. I'm a baker.
Bread is the staff of life. Who could resist the warm yeasty fragrance of something loving in the oven? Plenty, to tell by sales at the No-Bagel Emporium during the no-carb years. After years of denying themselves steaks and chops, butter and cheese, the diet nation was ready to indulge in fat, as long as no flour was involved. But the mass hysteria couldn't last. The craze has fizzled. It's just a matter of time before bread is king again.
Yet New Jersey is not Manhattan. New ideas, even bad-diet fads, take a while to catch on and twice as long to fade out.
The morning rush, make that amble, has slowed as a well-toned woman in a workout camisole and low-rise pants gazes longingly at my bread racks.Then she sucks in her lower lip.She said she just came in for bottled water but I sense a weakness.
Shameless panderer that I am, I lure undecided customers with generous samples.Yesterday it was palm-size ciabatta slices spread with violet-flower honey. Today it's raspberry-almond butter spread upon chocolate sourdough.
"We were meant for bread," I whisper over my countertop like a desperate lover. "Try it."
She shakes her head, clutching her Nina Bucci workout bag to her chest. "I really shouldn't."
"Just a taste." I push the tray an inch closer to her. "If you're going to sin, do it for the best of reasons."
"I suppose one nibble can't hurt." She looks quickly left and right in my all-but-empty store, then reaches out and snatches up the smallest cube and pops it in her mouth.
I know what to expect, the sudden widening of her eyes, the slight catch of her breath, and then that little moan of animal satisfaction. I nod and smile."I'll just pop a loaf in a bag for you. Pay now and pick it up on the way back from working out."
Before she can think better of her seduction I turn to bag a loaf, only a little ashamed of myself. I've become a pimp, and my madam is un petit pain.
Let me explain. I'm a bread addict. My grandparents owned the Bagel Emporium in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, for fifty years. They bought it from a Jewish couple from Hoboken, who were some of the first to emigrate to the new state of Israel in 1949. Five years ago Grandpa Horace decided they were too old to carry on and left the business to me, their only grandchild, and moved to Phoenix. It was a case of perfect timing. My career in advertising with my now ex, Ted, had begun to bore me to tears. I didn't have to think twice. I'm a Jersey girl, albeit one with a degree from a Swiss finishing school. Practicality is bred into my genes. The way I see it something that engages the five senses, makes arm-toning exercises an option and produces one of life's oldest culinary delights is a win-win situation.
Okay, Ted hated the idea. He said that in leaving advertising for an industry requiring physical labor I was "Opting out of an upper-middle-class career for a trade with all the cachet of cosmetology."
I consider his attitude bias. He has gluten sensitivity, which makes him swell with gas. Not a deadly reaction, just a very uncomfortable one. The sight of a floury kitchen counter is enough to send him reeling backward.
"Thanks." My customer smiles shyly at me as she pockets her change. "I hope Rodrigo doesn't smell chocolate bread on my breath."
"My pleasure." I offer her a Pez from my Snoopy dispenser.
"This will keep it our little secret."
Ted's opinion aside, I was born to make bread. I compensate by making the best bread in the tri-state area. I have plaques on the wall that attest to the fact.
We're an artisan bakery, which is small enough so that each worker knows the whole process of making bread, and two or three of us can make enough batches to supply the daily requirements of the store.
From the beginning, we flourished.
The location was ideal, situated on the first floor of a three-story building whose second floor is home to Five-0, a lifestyle magazine for the woman of a certain age.The third floor houses Rodrigo's Body Salon, which caters to suburbanites with cellulite issues. Between them and street traffic, the Bagel Emporium had a readymade clientele of boomer women who no longer thought two lettuce leaves make a lunch, and health acolytes who reasoned they had earned a little sumthin' after burning two cinnamon buns' worth of calories. Burn two, eat one. It was a calculation they could live with, and I knew I could live on.
Within weeks of ownership, I invested in two used industrial mixers and a brand-new stone deck oven, and branched out from bagels to my personal passion: leaven bread. We make the basics like baguettes, ciabatta, pagnotta, whole wheat, rye and sourdough. But I love to experiment. Custom orders for chocolate-cherry pumpernickel and piñon-nut queso blanco con mango whole wheat garnered so many requests they quickly became store staples along with gourmet delights like bittersweet chocolate croissants, bourbon pecan cinnamon rolls and focaccia pizzas. Friends call my creations the haute couture of bread-making. Business was so good after the first year that I dropped bagels altogether, a decision appreciated by the deli down the block. Regulars nicknamed us the No-Bagel Emporium, and it stuck. Then disaster struck. Noodles, pasta and bread became the pariahs of modern life.
The bakery is definitely on the road to recovery but the bills accrued while it was on life support sucked up all my discretionary savings. The bread is better than ever, but once lost, one's clientele is difficult to lure back. We're a broken habit.
I glance around my store. Like me, it's neat but showing its age. Once I wore Albert Nippon and Ferragamos. Now I dress from the Gap sale rack. The No-Bagel Emporium needs a makeover to attract new attention. But there's already a lien on the bakery. Guess we'll both have to make do for now.
I check the front windows for the passing of a perspective customer. The bump bump vibrations of the body-pump class sound track that filters into my shop means my customer base is focused for the moment on burning calories, not consuming them.
To console my disappointment that there is no line around the block waiting to get in there's always the case for a cinnamon roll. One bite is all it takes to produce a smile. Its syrupy, crunchy texture cannot be bested anywhere in the tri-state area. I know because we won a taste test four years ago.
Just as I'm adjusting my mouth for the first bite, the door opens and in comes the skinniest eight-year-old I've ever seen. "Hey, Dupree."
"Hey, Miz T.You got a job for me today?"
I look around until I spy a broom."Want to sweep the front?" He nods but sticks out his lip. "When am I gonna get a real job?"
"Sweeping is a real job." Dupree is an entrepreneur. His parents could buy my store but Dupree likes to earn his own money, which he doesn't waste on things like sweet rolls. So I have to think up excuses to fatten him up a bit.
"Before you start I have something else I need you to do for me." I put my cinnamon roll on a napkin and push it toward him. "I think Shemar is slipping. Tell me if you think this cinnamon roll is up to his usual standard."
Serious as any adult, Dupree takes it, eyeballs it and then takes a big bite.
"You need some milk, to get the full flavor experience." I pull a half-pint carton out of my case and offer it to him with a straw.
"It's good." He cranks his head to one side. "Only, needs a little more cin'mon."
"I'll tell Shemar. Finish it, anyway, because you know I don't like wastefulness. I'll give you a dollar as my consultant, and your choice of a loaf when you're done sweeping." Wish I could pay him but I don't want child services coming after me for violating child labor laws.
Coffee cup in hand, I scoop up the mail and head for a booth. An ominous-looking envelope from my flour distributor sits on top.
I love the tone of dunning letters. "We are sure you have overlooked... If not rectified in thirty days we will be forced... If the remit has been mailed please ignore..."
They manage to make you feel delinquent, a failure and possibly a good egg all in the same paragraph. Oh, and very afraid for your credit record.
I scan quickly through the advertisements and catalogs, until an industry magazine with the cover line AWAKE from the NoCarb Nightmare catches my eye.
I mumble as I read it until Celia taps me on the shoulder."You okay, Liz?"
"Listen to this. The cover article says the low-carb craze peaked last year.Yet on the very next page there's a piece about making low-carb bread. Instead of backing us up, the industry is still trying to cover every angle."
Celia smiles, which emphasizes the Kewpie doll contours of her face. "Those articles are written months in advance. Everyone knows bread is back."
I nod."You're right. Got to think positively. Business will pick up after people sample our wares at the Fine Arts and Crafts Show. That's only a month away."
"So is the wedding." My blank look must give away the need for a prompt because Celia adds,"My friend Jenna's wedding?"
"Oh, yeah." How could I forget the topic of every other conversation with Celia since the invitation arrived two weeks ago?
Celia pats her twice-pregnant tummy. "Can you tell I'm working out with Rodrigo twice a week?"
"Absolutely."
Celia Martin is a former Wall Street analyst who quit three years ago because she had fertility issues to resolve. They resolved as two sets of twins born sixteen months apart.Yet even the most dedicated mommy needs a little time off. Luckily, Celia's husband has one of those boring-sounding careers in insurance financing that earns obscene amounts of money. Thanks to him, ...
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
3 stars
By AK
Liz Talbot has reinvented herself and though life is a struggle, she's doing fairly well. Then, her late ex-husband's will is read, naming her sole beneficiary to a fourteen million dollar estate. Needless to say, the current Mrs. Talbot is not happy and contests the will. Liz finds herself trying to run her bread bakery which has been fighting to stay afloat since the no carb craze hit as well as trying to work with the woman who stole her husband to keep the ad agency he left her alive. If that were all she faced, it would be daunting, but Liz has also found a guy who makes her feel alive again, but she has no idea how he fits in her world, or if he does. Then, there is her mother, Sally, who is outrageous and wonderful, but a pita, especially to those who love her. Think of Shirley Maclaine's characters in most of her recent roles, and you will know Sally. Somehow, Liz needs to make all this work between dodging court summons from the woman referred to as her.
*** Most of the time when a book tends to be rambling, it's a horrid experience, but this book does that, and it is far from horrid. Liz is funny and very real, as are all the characters, even the dreaded "her." You may just have a hard time sticking to the Atkins diet after reading this; don't be surprised if you start craving bread. ***
Amanda Killgore
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
delightful middle age chick lit romance
By A Customer
Tired of advertising and even more so of her spouse Ted, Liz Talbot returns to her Jersey Girl roots when her grandparents move to Phoenix leaving her the Bagel Emporium in Upper Montclair; as always supportive Ted ditched his now physically laboring spouse for Brandi, a younger yuppie model. Meanwhile after five years of baking with carbs in spite of the bakery's public enemy number one Atkins and other diet fads, her enterprise is in financial trouble.
Ted proves much more supportive in death than in life as Mr. Ad Agency accidentally dies, but never changed his will from Talbot wife one to Talbot wife two. Thus Liz owns a failing ad agency to go along with her failing bakery while the outraged widow two files lawsuits faster than bagels can be made with the substance of the middle of a bagel. Thus she owns two businesses going under while also caring as the sandwich generation for her twin daughters and her mom. Liz obtains a respite when she meets an attractive hunk at a wedding, but soon marks him as off limits after she slept with him since he is food consultant Marcus James, who could make or break her beloved bakery and might assume her guilty of using him.
Poking jabs at America's diet flavor of the month, ICING ON THE CAKE is a delightful middle age chick lit romance starring a wonderful bread maker whose first person perspective is amusing yet poignant as she observes the chaos that revolves around her threatening to engulf her like a black hole. Liz makes the tale as she struggles with her two businesses, her relatives, her late ex husband's widow, and her heart with the ICING ON THE CAKE being the cat fight.
Harriet Klausner
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Delightful Heart Moving Chick Lit
By Chick Lit World
Left by her ex-husband who recently married a women half her age, Liz Talbot returns to new jersey where she runes the no bagel emporium. Barndi, the younger wife is much hated by Liz, but when her husband suddnely dies Liz is tied to Brandy for the near future. Ted has never changed his will after his first marriage and left his 15 million dollar estate to Liz accidently. However New Jersey law permits Brandi to sue for half the estate. As a result Liz and Brandi are thrown together to run Ted's ad agency (worth about 13 million of the estate). They can't sell it as the agency has been doing poorly in the last few months and they must work together to build the agency up in order to sell it. Thus Liz owns a failing ad agency to go along with her failing bakery Liz's journey from her backery back to the ad agency and back to the backery is a long one. Along the way she meets an attractive hunk at a wedding, but soon marks him as off limits after she slept with him since he is food consultant Marcus James, who could make or break her beloved bakery and might assume her guilty of using him.
Poking jabs at America's carb craze, ICING ON THE CAKE is a delightful middle age chick lit romance that any chick lit lover will enjoy. The novel is light and funny while touching on many issues of a divorced mother with two grown daughters. I love the fact that the book is about a bakery and learned quite a bit while loving every minute of the book.
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro PDF
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro EPub
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro Doc
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro iBooks
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro rtf
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro Mobipocket
Icing on the Cake, by Laura Castoro Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar