A bittersweet and often funny coming-of-age story set in a cross- cultural and extended family that lives between two kitchens-one traditional, the other New World.

Weston Hingler's crib was in the kitchen of BuenAppeTito, his mother's catering service. There, he learned to read while tasting all the flavors of his mother's culinary alphabet.

But before he was allowed to enter the Tsil Caf, he had to pass his father's taste tests. Anchovies. Habaero chiles. Chipotle peppers. Food to purge body and soul. Food his loving but sometimes volatile father uses as a measure of family, friends, and enemies.

Caught between these two kitchens, Weston quickly learns that he's also trapped by his wayward parents' secrets and histories, infidelities and gaping needs, as well as by the caf customers and employees who are privy to his growing up.

Weston chooses his escapes intuitively, but he can't get away. In this layered and savory novel, food is the reflection of life's shifting flavors, and readers will be drawn to the delicious package in which Averill delivers his story-complete with recipes. But ultimately they'll attach to Weston's complicated family, and when Averill serves us their feasts of reconciliation, readers will want to raise a toast.