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Overview
Mimi's life is an open book, or rather, an open menu.
A restaurant consultant, she's helped launch some of the best restaurants in Philly and around the world. And she even managed to turn her boyfriend Nick into the nation's hottest celebrity chef. But when she comes home and discovers that Nick's got a secret tongue–pierced girl on the side, Mimi realizes she doesn't have the secret to success after all.
Needing a change of pace, Mimi heads home to New Jersey. The family restaurant is failing and her brother, unknown to anyone, has made plans to sell. The ultimate Restaurant Diva, Mimi sets out to save the family business––a decision thatt leads her to two potentially perfect new men.
All her life Mimi has believed that everyone has one true Soul Mate, but now she's thinking that idea should be tossed out with last night's leftovers. Maybe it's time to select her men the way she selects pastries and produce and sample all there is to offer.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780060744052 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 03/28/2006 |
| Edition description: | With Author Interview |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.58(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Love, Life and Linguine
By Melissa Jacobs
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Melissa JacobsAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060744057
Chapter One
Home
"Welcome home." The U.S. Customs agent smiles as she closes my blue passport. Minutes later, a cab carries me away from Philadelphia International Airport toward the heart of the city. Ah, yes. I'm home.
Two weeks in Paris seemed like two months. It was a business trip. I had to go. But I was anxious to return. I'm starting a new chapter in my life. Before I left for Paris, I moved in with my boyfriend, Nick. Technically, my boxes moved into Nick's house. I didn't have time to unpack before I left.
I should have rescheduled the Paris trip. But when else could I have gone? Today is my last day with Dine International. Tomorrow I become the business manager of Il Ristorante, Nick's restaurant.
Not for the first time today, I look at my tote and read the business card placed behind the protective plastic. "Mimi Louis, Executive Restaurant Consultant, Dine International."
Mimi Louis isn't my real name. I was born Miriam Louis. I nicknamed myself Mimi when I was a toddler and couldn't pronounce my own name. The Louis? My grandfather left Russia a Luvizpharska and arrived in Brooklyn a Luvitz. My father left Brooklyn a Luvitz and arrived in South Jersey a Louis. What's in a family name?
My name might not be real, but my jobis. Seven years. That's how long I've been at Dine International. I'm ready for a change. I'm ready to stop traveling. I'm ready to settle down and work on my relationship with Nick. We've been dating for three months, and I want Nick to be It.
I've paid my dating dues. I had the amuse bouche of boys in high school, the butlered hors d'oeuvres of Penn guys in college and the soup du jour men in my early twenties. When I was twenty-eight, I had what I thought was a main course relationship, but there were too many ingredients swirling around my life. My ambition, his ambition. My traveling, his traveling. My promotions, his promotions. We didn't make time for our relationship, let alone a future. After that breakup, I had a palate cleansing rebound in Florence with Gio the Italian wine maker. Now, at thirty, I'm ready for the entree. The main course. Marriage.
Nick is ready for marriage, too. I know this. How? I know chefs.
Seduction by Risotto
Being a woman in the restaurant industry, I am used to being preyed upon by male chefs. But Nick? He's different. For starters, he's the most talented cook I've ever met.
Before Nick became Philadelphia's newest celebrity chef, he was the cook at a thirty-seat restaurant in South Philadelphia. A date took me to Nick's for dinner. It was amazing. The food. Not the date. The next day, I told my bosses at Dine International that we should recruit Nick to be the chef at the new Italian restaurant we were already building on Avenue of the Arts. A month later, the deal was done.
Nick and I worked side by side to create the new restaurant. He flirted with me, and although I was hesitant to get involved with a client, my resolve crumbled when Nick invited me to his house for dinner. His passion for food ignited my passion for him. Nick cooked pan-seared salmon in white wine and herb sauce with julienned zucchini and yellow squash. And risotto. It was the risotto that did it. The textures of the rice and cream combined with the earthiness of the mushrooms. It was seduction by risotto. I couldn't resist Nick. I didn't.
Mustard Memories
"Where are you going, miss?" the cabdriver asks, jolting me away from Nickalicious memories. I have given him Center City as a destination, but it's time to get specific.
"One moment, please," I say. Am I going straight to the office or do I have time to stop at Nick's? There's no room in my head for my schedule. I am BlackBerry dependent. Reaching into my tote, my hand closes around a glass jar of mustard I bought in a shop near Musee Rodin. I collect mustard.
When I was a child, I would lie in bed at night, trying to stay awake until Dad got home from Cafe Louis, the dressed-up diner he owned in South Jersey. Dad's workaholism made precious any moments I had alone with him. If I could stay awake until Dad came home, I would tiptoe down the stairs so as not to wake Mom, who was usually asleep after a long day of housework, car pooling, and homework.
I adore my mother. She is, as Dad always said, a real looker. Mom has shoulder-length, gray blond hair and dark green eyes. Mom is thin, although she eats like a horse. I wish I had Mom's looks, and metabolism, but I have dark, wavy hair and milk chocolate eyes from my father's family.
As much as I love Mom, I always felt closer to Dad. I loved hanging out in the restaurant with him. I would greet the regulars and they would say, "There's Jay's little girl." On school nights when I couldn't be in the restaurant, I would try to wait up for Dad.
I'd turn on the kitchen lights and be waiting for Dad when he came through the door. "You should be in bed," he would say. It was the opening line of our routine.
I'd say my line. "I'm hungry, Daddy."
"No one should go to bed on an empty stomach," he'd answer.
Sandwiches were our late night snacks. Dad could make a sandwich from anything in the refrigerator. He was a leftover artist, but he never compromised on mustard. "Good mustard makes everything taste better," Dad would say. "Now, my Mimi, tell me about your day. What's the what?"
We continued this tradition through my childhood and adolescence, right up until I left for college. As I got older, it got easier to wait up for Dad, but harder to tell him about my life. . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from Love, Life and Linguine by Melissa Jacobs Copyright © 2006 by Melissa Jacobs. Excerpted by permission.
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