A Meal to serve when someone comes home from the hospital after being smashed by a truck #CooktheBooks

 Our Cook the Books Club December/January Selection was a delightful novel about accepting yourself, taking care of yourself and believing in yourself.  

Our host for this selection is Deb of  Kahakai Kitchen.  You can see her invitation post and learn how to join in the fun at our CTB homepage and guidelines page.   You still have over a month to join in the fun.

This novel follows Kate, a thirty something woman who finds herself in a deadend job and deadend relationship while worrying that her biological clock is ticking and seeing no way out of either of these predicaments.  

Looking for a sense of purpose Kate volunteers at a retirement/assisted living complex where she meets Cecily, a cantankerous, blunt, demanding and very outspoken lady.  Miss Cecily shares a cookbook that she had written and had published many years ago.  

The cookbook, like Miss Cecily, is very blunt and has a meal for every occasion with titles like Breakfast with a Hangover and Dinner for a Charming Stranger.  Each chapter of the cookbook features a menu that Cecily served for whatever was going on in her life at the time.  

As Kate reads and cooks through the cookbook she also visits and reads to Miss Cecily who begins sharing the story of her fascinating life with Kate.  Kate learns, through these stories and visits, that it is never to late to chase your dreams and change your circumstances.

I started this book right before Thanksgiving.  On the day after Thanksgiving, while going for my daily walk, I was struck by a Ford 250 pickup truck, resulting in a 3 week hospital stay for multiple fractures in my left arm, a broken eye socket, broken pelvic bones and fractured wing plate.

I finished this book during that stint in the hospital.  When I returned home to continue my rehabilitation, my husband who had taken over all the household duties, was the perfect caregiver of all my needs, including meals.  

Some of the meals that he made were meals that I had planned for blogging, like these Copy Cat In and Out Burgers and this Sourdough Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  One night he made these chili lime chicken skewers, steamed rice and stir fry vegetables.  It was a delicious dinner and I thought that, if I were Miss Cecily, I would add it to my cookbook as "A Meal to Serve When Someone Comes Home from the Hospital After Being Smashed by a Truck".

I am also sharing this review over at Foodies Read.  Stop by and see what the other foodies are reading and cooking this month.