As a child, Renia Carsillo never fit comfortably in her conservative Southern family. To compensate for her inability (or was it refusal?) to take on a traditional female role, she turned to the most traditional place of all, the kitchen, to nourish the never-sated hunger that ate away at her confidence. This book, told in vignettes of memories and recipes, is the story of how a Southern fundamentalist Christian girl grew into the woman her family always warned her about. Join Renia's journey down the red dirt roads of the rural South to the not-so-innocent pleasures of a Belgian chocolate shop. Along the way you'll meet a cast of Kentucky-raised farmers, Filipino doctors' daughters, and one very special New England baker who helped transform this hungry daughter of Dixie into a feminist food warrior.