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  Praise of the Novels of Barbara O’Neal

  The Lost Recipe for Happiness

  “The Lost Recipe for Happiness is a delectable banquet for the reader.… This book is as delicious as the recipes interspersed throughout an unforgettable story.”

  —SUSAN WIGGS, New York Times bestselling author

  “The Lost Recipe for Happiness is utterly magical and fantastically sensual. It’s as dark and deep and sweet as chocolate. I want to live in this book.… A total triumph.”

  —SARAH ADDISON ALLEN, New York Times bestselling author

  “Beautiful writing, good storytelling and an endearing heroine set against the backdrop of Aspen, Colorado, are highlights of O’Neal’s novel. A tale that intertwines food, friendship, passion and love in such a delectable mix is one to truly savor until the very last page.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Will appeal to women’s fiction fans and foodies, who will enjoy the intriguing recipes … laced through the book.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  The Secret of Everything

  “O’Neal has created a powerful and intriguing story rich in detailed and vivid descriptions of the Southwest.”

  —Booklist

  “Readers will identify with this story and the multilayered characters.… And with some of the tantalizing recipes for dishes served at the 100 Breakfasts Café included, O’Neal provides a feast not only for the imagination but the taste buds as well.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Barbara O’Neal has masterfully woven local culture, the beauty of nature, her love of food and restaurants, and a little romance into this magnificent novel.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  BY BARBARA O’NEAL

  The Lost Recipe for Happiness

  The Secret of Everything

  How to Bake a Perfect Life

  How to Bake a Perfect Life is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2011 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Original

  Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Samuel

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design: Brigid Pearson

  Cover images: © Freegine/Alamy (woman), © Joanna Totolici/Getty Images (dog)

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  O’Neal, Barbara

  How to bake a perfect life : a novel / Barbara O’Neal.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90816-9

  1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction 2. Parenting—Fiction. 3. Women—Conduct of life—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.I485H69 2011

  813′.54—dc22 2010033811

  www.bantamdell.com

  v3.1

  For my mother, Rosalie Hair,

  who is nothing like any of the mothers in this book.

  Well, except for maybe that earring thing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, a zillion people helped with this book. Many, many thanks to my sister Cathy Stroo, who helps me with medical knowledge on nearly every book, and this time helped me understand the struggles of burn patients. For help with the process of how wounded soldiers are moved through the hospital system, I’m extremely grateful to MaryAnn Phillips, who heads up the volunteer organization Soldiers’ Angels (www.soldiersangels.org), a valuable and devoted group who serve soldiers and their families at one of the worst times in a soldier’s life. All mistakes or missteps are entirely my own. Thanks also to Terence. Muchas gracias, my friend.

  My grandmother Madoline O’Neal Putman, and the late great Merlin Murphy O’Hare kept me company all through the writing of this book. Miss you both lots and lots.

  And, as ever, thanks to Christopher Robin, who tastes everything even if he is sure he won’t like it.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise of the Novels of Barbara O’Neal

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Step One - Starter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Step Two - Ingredients

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Step Three - Knead and Set in a Warm Place to Rise

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Step Four - Punch It Down

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Step Five - Bake

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  About the Author

  STEP ONE

  Sourdough starter—or mother dough, as it is known—is made from wild yeast that lives invisibly in the air. Each sponge is different, according to the location where it is born, the weather, the time of its inception, and the ingredients used to create it. A mother dough can live for generations if properly tended and will shift and grow and transform with time, ingredients, and the habits of the tender.

  The Boudin mother dough used to create the famously sour San Francisco bread was already fifty years old when it was saved from the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 by Louise Boudin, who carried the mother dough to Golden Gate Park in a wooden bucket. There it was packed in ice and used to make bread daily until a new bakery could be built at its current location. The mother dough, now more than 150 years old, is stored in a vault, “like a wild beast,” and bread is made from it every day.

  When the phone call that we have been dreading comes, my daughter and I are gathered
around the center island of my bakery kitchen. Sofia is leafing through a magazine, the slippery pages floating down languidly, one after the next.

  I am experimenting with a new sourdough starter in an attempt to reproduce a black bread I tasted at a bakery in Denver a couple of weeks ago. This is not my own, treasured starter, handed down from my grandmother Adelaide’s line and known to be more than a hundred years old. That “mother dough,” as it is called, has won my breads some fame, and I guard it jealously.

  This new starter has been brewing for nearly ten days. I began with boiled potatoes mashed in their water then set aside in a warm spot. Once the starter began to brew and grow, I fed it daily with rye flour, a little whole wheat and malt sugar, and let it ferment.

  On this languid May afternoon, I hold the jar up to examine it. The sponge is alive and sturdy, bubbling with cultures. A thick layer of dark brown hooch, the liquid alcohol generated by the dough, stands on top. When I pull loose wrap off the top of the bottle and stick my nose in, it is agreeably, deeply sour. I shake the starter, stick my pinkie finger in, taste it. “Mmm. Perfect.”

  Sofia doesn’t get as worked up over bread as I do, though she is a passable baker. She smiles, and her hand moves over her belly in a slow, warm way. Welcoming. It’s her left hand, the one with the wedding set—diamond engagement ring, gold band. The baby is due in less than eight weeks. Her husband is in Afghanistan.

  We have not heard from him in four days.

  I remember when her small body was curled up beneath my ribs, when I thought I was going to give her away, when the feeling of her moving inside of me was both a terror and a wonder. If only I could keep her that safe now.

  The bakery is closed for the day. Late-afternoon sunshine slants in through the windows and boomerangs off the stainless steel so intensely that I have to keep moving around the big center island to keep it out of my eyes. The kneading machines are still as I stir together starter and molasses, water and oil and flour, until it’s a thick mass I can turn out onto the table with a heavy splat. Plunging my hands into the dark sticky blob, I scatter the barest possible amounts of rye flour over it, kneading it in a bit at a time. The rhythm is steady, smooth. It has given me enviable muscles in my arms.

  “What do you want for your birthday?” Sofia asks, flipping a page.

  “It’s ages away!”

  “Only a couple of months.”

  “Well, I guess as long as there are no black balloons, I’m good.” Last year, my enormous family—at least, those members who are still speaking to me—felt bound to present me with graveyard cakes and make jokes about crow’s feet, which, thanks to my grandmother Adelaide’s cheekbones, I do not have.

  “A person has to suffer through only one fortieth birthday in a lifetime.” Sofia turns another page. “How about this?” She holds up an ad for a lavish sapphire necklace. “Good for your eyes.”

  “Tiffany. Perfect.” At the moment, I’m so broke that a bubblegum ring would be expensive, though of course Sofia doesn’t know that the bakery is in trouble. “You can buy it for me when you’re rich and famous.”

  “When I am that superstar kindergarten teacher?”

  “Right.”

  “Deal.”

  I push the heel of my palm into the dough and it squeezes upward, cool and clammy. An earthy bouquet rises from it, and I’m anticipating how the caramelizing molasses will smell as it bakes.

  A miller darts between us, flapping dusty wings in sudden terror. Sofia waves it away, frowning. “I hope we’re not going to have a crazy miller season this year.”

  I think of a Jethro Tull song, and for a minute I’m lost in another part of my life, another summer. Shaking it off, I fold the dough. “It’s been a wet year.”

  “Ugh. I hate them.” She shudders to give emphasis. Then she closes her magazine and squares her shoulders. “Mom, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  Finally. “I’m listening.”

  She spills it, fast. “I told you Oscar’s ex-wife was arrested in El Paso and Katie has been living with her best friend’s family, but Oscar really wants her to come and live with me. Us. She’s got some problems, I won’t lie, but she just needs somebody to be there for her.” Sofia has eyes like a plastic Kewpie doll, all blink and blueness with a fringe of blackest lashes. “She can sleep upstairs, in the back room. Close to me. She lived with us before Oscar went to Afghanistan. It was fine.”

  “Hmmm. I seem to remember it differently.”

  “Okay, it wasn’t fine. Exactly.” Sofia bows her head. Light arcs over her glossy dark hair. “She was pretty angry then.”

  “And she’s happy now?” I scatter flour over the dough and table, where it is beginning to stick. “Because her mother is in jail and her father is at war?”

  “No. I mean—”

  The phone rings. I glance at it, then back to my daughter. Obviously there is no possible way I can say no. The child has nowhere to go, but—

  To give myself a little time, I tug my hands out of the dough, wipe them off with one of the thin white cotton towels I love for covering the loaves when they rise. “How old is she?”

  A second ring.

  “Thirteen. Going into eighth grade.”

  “Middle school.” Not the most delightful age for girls. Even Sofia was a pain at that age—all huffy sighs and hair-flinging drama. And tears. Tears over everything.

  The phone rings again, and I hold up a finger to Sofia. “Hold that thought. Hello?”

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” says a deep, formal voice on the other end. “May I please speak with Mrs. Oscar Wilson?”

  Every atom in my body freezes for the space of two seconds. Here it is, the moment I’ve been half dreading since Sofia came home four years ago, her eyes shining. Mama, he’s the most wonderful man! He wants to marry me.

  A soldier. An infantryman who’d already done two tours of Iraq during the bloodiest days of the war and would likely do more. Oscar is older than Sofia by more than a decade, divorced, and father to this brand-new adolescent who has a very troubled mother.

  Not a soldier, baby, I kept thinking.

  And yet as soon as I met Oscar Wilson, with his beautiful face and kind eyes and gentle manners, I knew exactly why she loved him. It was plain he worshipped her in return.

  But here is the phone call.

  “Yes,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “Just a minute please.” I put the mouthpiece against my stomach, turn to my daughter. “Remember, they come to the door if he’s dead.”

  Sofia stares at me for a long, long second. Fear bleeds the color from her lips. But she has the courage of a battalion of soldiers. Taking a breath, she squares her shoulders and reaches for the phone. Her left hand covers her belly, as if to spare the baby. “This is Mrs. Wilson.”

  She listens, her face impassive, and then begins to fire questions, writing down the answers in a notebook lying open on the counter. “How long has he been there? Who is my contact?” And then, “Thank you. I’ll call with my arrangements.”

  As she hangs up the phone, her hand is trembling. Unspilled tears make her lashes starry. She stands there one long moment, then blinks hard and looks at me. “I have to go to Germany. Oscar is … he was …” She clears her throat, waits until the emotion subsides. “His truck hit an IED four days ago. He’s badly injured. Burned.”

  I think that I will always remember how blue her eyes look in the brilliant sunshine of the kitchen. Years and years from now, this is what I will recall of this day—my daughter staring at me with both terror and hope, and my absolute powerlessness to make this better.

  “I have to go to him,” she says.

  “Of course.”

  I think, How badly burned?

  She turns, looks around as if there will be a list she can consult. She’s like my mother in that way, wanting everything to be orderly. “I guess I should pack.”

  “Let me scrape this into a bowl and I’ll help you.”<
br />
  As if her legs are made of dough, she sinks suddenly into the chair. “How long do you think I’ll be there? What about the baby?”

  “One step at a time, Sofia. I’m sure you’ll have those answers before long. Just think about getting there, see what … how … what you need to find out.”

  “Right.” She nods. Touches her chest. “Mom. What about Katie? She can’t stay where she is.”

  A thirteen-year-old whose mother is in jail, whose father is wounded, and whose stepmother is pregnant with a new baby and flying off to Germany, leaving her with a woman she doesn’t know. “She’s never even met me. Won’t she be scared?”

  “Maybe for a while, but I can’t let her go to a foster home. She can come just for the summer. Grandma will help you, I’m sure, and Uncle Ryan and—”

  I hold a hand up. There is only one answer. “Of course, baby. Let’s get those arrangements made now, too, so you don’t have to worry about her.”

  She leaps up and hugs me, her mound of belly bumping my hip. It is only as I put my arms around her that I feel the powerful trembling in her shoulders. I squeeze my eyes shut and rub her back, wishing I could tell her that everything is going to be okay. “Do your best, Sofia. That’s all the world can ask.”