Her life’s a mess. And so is her kitchen.

Divorced, heartbroken and living in a lonely New York apartment with a tiny kitchen, Rachel Goldman realizes she doesn’t even know how to cook the simplest meal for herself. Can learning to fry an egg help her understand where her life went wrong?

She dives into the culinary basics.

Then she launches a blog to vent her misery about life, love and her goal of an unburnt casserole.To her amazement, the blog’s a hit. She becomes a minor celebrity. Next, a sexy Spaniard enters her life.

Will her souffles stop falling? Will she finally forget about the husband she still loves? And how can she explain to her readers that she still hasn’t learned how to cook up a happy life from scratch?

Rachel’s life is what her parents may deem a “disappointment”, but not so for her. In the nine months since her divorce from her husband Adam she’s left not only him behind, but her career as well. Starting out with a clean slate she’s determined to do the one thing her mother never taught her, to cook. In what begins as a year long break to discover herself through cooking and learning how to make the basics, Rachel soon discovers that’s there is more to life than just eggs. With a new romance, an extremely successful food blog and all the support she could ask for from her best friend Arianna, Rachel sets out for a new life and discovers that to move forward you sometimes need a recipe book to tell you how.

Love, love, loved this book! First of all, it’s about a girl who blogs, Rachel. That alone would have had me taking a closer look at the book. Well, my friend Juju at Tales of Whimsy (a lovely blog by the way) had mentioned this book a few times and then also posted a bit from the first part of the book…

“June Cleaver beat the crap out of me with her rolling pin. In my dream, Martha Stewart, June Cleaver, Bree Van De Kamp, and Marion Cunningham (who they were all affectionately calling Mrs. “C”) were baking a pie together in my kitchen and arguing about the best way to pit cherries. They hadn’t really noticed me lounging around by the sink until I pointed out what a waste of time it would be to pit your own cherries when there were perfectly decent ones that you could get in a can when June Cleaver turned with a maniacal gleam in her eye and started beating me on the face and shoulders with her flour-dusted rolling pin. Just imagine what she would have done to me if I had suggested frozen pie crust.“

Oh my! She had me at June Cleaver, Martha Stewart and…food. I’m an absolute book-food junkie! If an author can incorporate food into the storyline of a book somehow and do it well then I’m pretty much hooked. In this case, Melissa Ford had me begging for more by the end (which is good, because apparently there’s a sequel in the works).

What was incredibly enjoyable about Rachel’s story was that almost anyone could relate to it. The vast majority of women out there anymore have blogs with quite a few of them being food blogs, and if that’s not the case it’s highly likely you know someone who has one or read them regularly. In fact, for me it was even easier to relate because my own mother is a food blogger! It was hilarious to hear the little failures Rachel would have in the kitchen as well as the successes. The format, with every chapter starting with a blog post was also fun and added to the overall ease of reading.

Not only did the blog/food combo interest me when I first looked at Life From Scratch, but the issues of friendship and infertility were ones I’ve encountered myself. Being someone who suffers from infertility problems as well as having numerous friends with similar problems it was refreshing to read a story that incorporated that topic without feeling like I was being given a note to the doctors office for a thorough talking-to. Her relationship with her best friend Arianna, who suffered many infertility issues, was also something I’m incredibly envious of and loved how they interacted.

Absolutely one of the entertaining and delightful reads out there, particularly if you happen to be a blogger yourself. Melissa Ford has crafted a true to life character, with the same doubts and fears we all have. Rachel is someone who could quite literally be typing away at this very moment getting her own blog post ready to go for the next morning. This is a story that I’m certain chick lit fans will adore! A quick read about discovering who you are and finding the secret ingredient that makes you truly unique with a dash of romance thrown in along the way.

I’d like to thank the publisher, Bell Bridge Books, for providing an eGalley for review!

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