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Vicky Zimmerman | MISS CECILY’S RECIPES FOR EXCEPTIONAL LADIES
Author Guest / June 12, 2020

My new novel, Miss Cecily’s Recipes for Exceptional Ladies, has two heroines–Kate Parker, 40 and on the verge of a break-up, and Cecily Finn, a 97-year-old grumpy but very funny old lady–bond over an unusual cookbook.  The cookbook, Thought for Food, contains more than just recipes.  It has menus for some of life’s most challenging occasions: “Dinner for the Man You Hope to Marry,” “Dinner for The Man You’re Trying to Bid Farewell To.”  Along with delicious recipes, the book has tips on how to survive the occasion, varying from the practical to the richly comic. Thought for Food was a real book published in 1957.  It was co-written by the real-life Cecily Finn, who was my grandma. Real-life Cecily was born in London’s East End in 1903.  Her family ran a candy and ice-cream store–which created her lifelong passion for food. My grandma had a beautiful older sister, May, and my great-grandpa Josef constantly told Cecily that because she lacked May’s beauty, she’d never find a husband, and so at 18, he forced her to become a teacher.  (The job would guarantee a secure pension.)  Cecily may not have shared May’s beauty, but she was warm, smart, funny, creative,…