This is a story about accepting the people we loveβthe people we have to love and the people we choose to love, the families weβre given and the families we make. Itβs the story of two women adrift in New York, a widow and an almost-orphan, each searching for someone sheβs lost. Itβs the story of how, even in moments of grief and darkness, there are joys waiting nearby.
Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks, making croissants and chocolat chaud, seeking out rare ingredients, all to earn the love of her distracted chef of a mother, who is now packing her off to boarding school. In one last effort to prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her motherβs ideal meal, an obscure Middle Eastern dish called masgouf.
Victoria, grappling with her husbandβs death, has been dreaming of the daughter they gave up forty years ago. An Iraqi Jewish immigrant who used to run a restaurant, she starts teaching cooking lessons; Lorca signs up.
Together, they make cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, kubba with squash. They also begin to suspect they are connected by more than their love of food. Soon, though, they must reckon with the past, the future, and the truthβwhatever it might be. Bukra fil mish mish, the Arabic saying goes. Tomorrow, apricots may bloom.
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