Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Isabel Johansen, a celebrated chef who grew up in the sleepy Sonoma town of Archangel, is transforming her childhood home into a destination cooking schools. Bella Vista's rambling mission-style hacienda, with its working apple orchards, bountiful gardens, and beehives, is the idyllic venue for Isabel's project . . . and the perfect place for her to forget the past. But Isabel's carefully ordered plans begin to go awry when swaggering, war-torn journalist...

Hope Ladley roams the Texas countryside in 1891 as an itinerant cook. When she arrives at Stauffer farm, she knows this is the place the Lord wants her to be. Jakob Stauffer, while grateful for a cook to assist his sister and young daughter, is baffled by Hope's unconventional methods. Yet he can't deny that her sunny disposition is making changes in his own heart.

"Before beginning her new job as sous chef at one of Seattle's finest restaurants, Josie Stewart takes on a six-month position cooking at a lodge in an Alaskan lake town. It's only temporary--or so she thinks, as she becomes a valued part of the local community, falling in love with the people who call Klutina Lake home. But one Alaskan man, in particular, stands out among Josie's new friends: Palmer Saxon, a quiet, intense sword craftsman, whose...

When Chef Gina Foxton, host of her own PBS show Fresh Start catches her producer boyfriend and the boss's wife in a compromising position and her show gets cancelled, she realizes she is meant for better things, namely a gig on national television's the cooking channel. But her competition for a spot on the cooking channel is a hunky guy who challenges her to the cook-off of their lives with a dash of romance.

"A Chinese American chef, ... lured to a decadent, enigmatic colony of the super-rich in a near future in which food is disappearing, discovers the meaning of pleasure and the ethics of who gets to enjoy it, altering her life and, indirectly, the world"--

With summer in bloom and tourists afoot, Allie is out walking her pup, Mal, when the curious canine digs up a bone from under a flowering lilac bush. The bone leads to a toe that's missing a body. For the successful confectionaire it's only the first in a series of sour events in the middle of the island's Lilac Fest. When her stint on a cooking reality show swirls up a trail of foul play, Allie will have to outwit a cunning killer if she wants to...

"In small town West Virginia, 1954, one newcomer's special gift with food produces both gratitude and censure. Will Perla Long and her daughter find a home there?"--

Nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell resolved to reclaim her life by cooking, in a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's 1961 classic, Mastering the art of French cooking. Her unexpected reward, a new life lived with gusto.

After she discovered the affair and divorced her husband, Dana Sue Sullivan decided to create the best restaurant in Serenity, South Carolina. Years of hard labor has made her dream a reality, providing Southern comfort food and a haven for the whole town. But when her teenage daughter Annie's eating disorder lands her in the hospital and her own health starts to deteriorate, Dana Sue is forced to change her life again, even if it means letting her...

"When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine--and a dashing sommelier--he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter--starting with puréed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes...