Comfort Food

March 10, 2008
Jacobs follows The Friday Night Knitting Club
with another multigenerational tale, this time on the foodie circuit. Popular Cooking with Gusto!
host Augusta “Gus” Simpson, a widowed mother of two adult daughters who’s about to turn 50, is tiring of her many obligations, which include throwing an annual birthday bash for herself. That trial pales, however, in comparison with the introduction of saucy former beauty queen and YouTube star Carmen Vega as Gus’s cohost: Carmen is younger, hotter and very tight with the boss. It’s soon apparent on the set that this new situation isn’t working, so the two are packed off, along with a forgettable cast of secondaries, to a corporate team-building weekend, complete with New Age guide. When the resort’s head chef calls in sick, a team-building opportunity presents itself. Jacobs gives Gus a reasonable love interest and provides the requisite bickering and backstabbing, but the foodie moments lack passion, and the results yield no stars.

August 15, 2008
Jacobs's cheery follow-up to the best-selling "Friday Night Knitting Club" (soon to be a feature film starring Julia Roberts) is another multigenerational tale with broad appeal, one tracking the personal and professional tribulations of a popular celebrity chef and her two twentysomething daughters. While the secondary story lines are at times a bit thin, Barbara Rosenblat's (www.barbararosenblat.com) ebullient narration and the string of happy endings make this a good choice for popular collections. [With tracks every three minutes for bookmarking; also recorded by Penguin Audio. 9 CDs. unabridged. 10 hrs. ISBN 978-0-14-314316-1. $39.95; audio clips available through www.blackstoneaudio.com and us.penguingroup.com; the Putnam hc was "highly recommended," "LJ" 4/1/08.Ed.]Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., Garrettsville, OH

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