Eating Heaven by Jennie Shortridge

Jennie Shortridge's novel, Eating Heaven, explores the importance of relationships. Protagonist, Eleanor Samuels works through complex issues with her self-absorbed mother, her older sisters, work, men, and her love-hate relationship with food. "Uncle" Benny, an old friend of her mother's, is dying of prostate cancer and Ellie takes over his care. As she learns more about him, she learns more about herself, discovers family secrets, and the depth of love.

Ellie is a food writer, living in Portland, whose job requires her to reconfigure recipes into lite, low cal variations. She takes on assignments such as "Chicken Soup Recipes to Cure Just about Anything" while preparing foods to tempt Benny who has little interest in eating. She creates recipes for some extreme concoctions. As one of her friends says, "Who knew you could make ice cream with nondairy creamer?"

With characters flawed, confused and all too human, Ms Shortridge has written a story of self-discovery that will make you laugh out loud. It's also sad in places and always very real. Eating Heaven is a lovely read. It ends with a beautiful manifesto on food, titled "How to Eat,"  the emotional equivalent of Michael Pollen's Food Rules.