Compromise Cake

"Nancy Spiller dips into her mother's recipe box for a captivating confection of a memoir and out comes the history of sugar, family history, California history and anecdotes both humorous and of the heart. Illustrating the chapters are cozy watercolors in sugary pastels that, taken together with the delightful text, make Compromise Cake a great read and a perfect gift for the holidays. If you want to serve up a treat for your loved ones or just for yourself, this book is it." -- Susan Sherman, author of The Little Russian "Nothing in Julia Childs is more telling than Nancy Spiller's mother's passed down instructions for a stolid "compromise cake" that turns out, in Spiller's deft description, to be a recipe for how to endure the hard parts of a woman's life. Ultimately, this lovely and often bittersweet book, reminds us that the food we share, no matter the unhappy provenance of the recipe, can bring us together with the people we never want to forget." -- Signe Wilkinson, winner of Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning "Nancy Spiller understands that there's no one recipe for relationships. But she deftly uses cooking to narrate her own mother's fraught life, offering us a feast of insights on family, culture, and politics along the way. A wise book, written for anyone who appreciates that our past can only begin to make sense if we have the courage to dig into the artifacts we are left with - in Spiller's case, her mother's recipe box - with honesty and courage." -- Caroline Paul, Lost Cat, and Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Wine "Charming, delightful, whimsical illustrations. Every page is a treat." -- Wendy MacNaughton, illustrator, Lost Cat, Fighting Fire and East Wind, Rain.