One part Tuesdays with Morrie, one part Like Water for Chocolate, Nana Lena's Kitchen by Amy Ostrower is an inspirational collection of stories and recipes from a Southern Jewish kitchen. These recipes read almost like folk tales, fables from a mythic past handed down generation to generation with love. As an extended family of sisters, daughters and granddaughters gather to make a Passover meal or prepare the Shivah table, Nana Lena's recipes are dispensed with an equal measure of wisdom - about life and death, courage and responsibility, family and faith. We see the spirited Lena grow in these pages from a young girl and impetu-ous bride to a loving mother and grandmother. Her story mirrors the larg-er currents of her times. The daughter of immigrants, Lena Goodman was born on the Fourth of July, 1912 in Berkley, Virginia. During her lifetime she saw the Flu Epidemic of 1918, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the invention of indoor plumbing -- even a Jewish boy named Sandy Koufax play Major League Baseball. She continues to live on in these sto-ries, fondly remembered by her granddaughter Amy, who is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. Nana Lena's Kitchen is a gem -- and a perfect gift for mothers, daughters, bubbies and best friends. www.nanalenaskitchen.com "Nana Lena's Kitchen warms your heart. In an age of indifference here is a woman, her stories and recipes deliciously remembered, who reminds you of the beauty of the human heart. Pull up a chair and have a nosh." --Jan Goldstein, Author of All That Matters "Here are charm and wisdom, served with love." --Amy Hill Hearth, Co-Author of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years