My Grape Wedding takes fans of Laura Bradbury's 'Grape' series back to the enchanting world of Burgundy five years after Franck and Laura meet on a student exchange. After a spontaneous proposal in Kathmandu, the bride-to-be struggles with balancing the academic demands of an Oxford law student in between lessons on how to be a proper Catholic and fittings with the Queen of England's corset maker. Back in Burgundy, Laura's anxiety grows as wedding plans fall apart. As guests arrive, the rain clouds move in, family wine tastings turn into tournaments of survival of the fittest, and a bombshell from the priest leaves the couple looking for divine intervention. Laura believes she and Franck belong together, but how will they survive this tumultuous journey to the altar?
My Grape Year takes fans of Laura Bradbury's 'Grape' series back to where it all began. In a last-minute twist of fate, Laura is sent to Burgundy, France for a year on an exchange. She arrives knowing only a smattering of French and with no idea what to expect in her first foray out of North America. With a head full of dreams and a powerful desire to please, Laura adapts to Burgundian life, learning crucial skills such as the fine art of winetasting and how to savor snails. However, her inability to resist the charming young men of the region means that Laura soon runs afoul of the rules, particularly the 'no dating' edict. Romantic afternoons in Dijon, early morning pain au chocolat runs, and long walks in the vineyards are wondrous, but also present Laura with a conundrum - how does she keep her hosts happy while still managing to follow her heart?
Five years after "My Grape Escape," Laura and Franck are back in Burgundy to tackle their newest project, a derelict 16th century winemaker's cottage located behind Franck's family home. Not only is this a daunting rebuild from the ground up, Laura and Franck now have two preschoolers adjusting to the foreign customs of a French school. Navigating the different rules for raising children and managing a family in a small French village prove every bit as challenging for Laura as learning to drive a stick shift through narrow streets, or arguing with the Architect of French Monuments over permissible paint colors (spoiler alert: any color as long as it's gray). Come along on this evocative and honest journey where love, coupled with good French food and local wine, pave the way to la belle vie.
"A twenty-six year old newlywed on the path to a prestigious legal career in London buys a decrepit, revolutionary-era ruin in the tiny Burgundian village of Magny-les-Villers. Was that split-second, life-altering decision profoundly wise or utterly insane? Find out in My Grape Escape -- a story for anyone who's imagined taking a U-Turn in life to seize their joy. Could an Oxford law student schooled in overachievement trade it all in for the humble work of polishing metal door hinges forged in 1789 at the dawn of the French Revolution? Laura Bradbury found out when, as a twenty-six year old newlywed on the path to a prestigious legal career in London, she leapt off the ladder to success to buy a decrepit ruin in the tiny French village of Magny-les-Villers with her Burgundian husband. Trading in her academic cap and gown for a ruthlessly traditional French winemaking town brought a myriad of unsettling new experiences. Laura's idealistic visions of bicycling through the French vineyards with fresh baguettes under her arm had not included being confronted with a steaming plate of veal brains for breakfast or taming an ogre of an electrician named Tin Tin who hunted wild boars in his spare time. Still, as Laura learned the art of bartering for antique armoires and rekindled romance with her husband she also gained a newfound perspective on herself, including her recurrent panic attacks and her inability to carry on conversations with the Virgin Mary like her Catholic husband and the rest of his family. Laura's tale of her escape to the vineyards of France is told with humor and a large dollop of honesty. It allows readers to travel to France without needing to buy a plane ticket!"--provided from Amazon.com.
"Laura Bradbury's writing will make you hungry for life." - Amazon reviewer My Grape Cellar takes fans of Laura Bradbury's Grape Series back to the charming village of Beaune, where Laura and Franck embark on another grande adventure to restore a long-neglected wine cellar beneath the cobblestone streets-sight unseen. Much as they dream of family winetastings in this relic of historic France, reviving a thirteenth-century cellar proves a formidable task. Laura never imagined she'd be hunting through ancient sinks, hauling stones by moonlight, or appointing godparents for a medieval cave, all while managing an even more important project: a new baby. Can Laura and Franck transform a dingy cellar full of garbage and coal into a magical space in the wine capital of Burgundy? Find out in My Grape Cellar, book 6 in the bestselling Grape Series.
Someone asks, "Why do we . . . at Church?" The answer could be . . . "We've always done it that way," "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," or, "We don't need to change things and cause confusion." The answers to the questions reveal the heart of the problem in the modern church. "Spilt Grape Juice" hits many sacred traditions we hold dear about church. For example, parents tell their children, "You are going to wear your best clothes to church." When asked about a Sunday activity with friends from work, many Christians respond, "I'll be in church at that time." Root would ask the piercing question, "What do clothes and being in church have to do with worship?" Look again at worship, and the Sunday experience may take on new meaning.
Experience the Joy and Delight of Creating Amazing Wedding Cakes from Scratch. Lorelie Carvey will show you how to make and decorate the perfect wedding cake. The award-winning pastry chef has spent over thirty years perfecting her techniques and now offers advice that will ensure a sweet memory for your bride's special day. From the first idea to the spectacular result, Carvey guides you through everything you need to know to make the ultimate dream dessert. She includes her favorite recipes, like her chocolate buttermilk cake, hazelnut cake, chocolate mousse, lemon cream cheese, Italian meringue buttercream, and so much more. Carvey personally perfected each recipe during her baking career. In addition to recipes, Carvey clearly and comprehensively explains and demonstrates (with detailed photos) the baking and decorating techniques so you can create your unique cake design. With her own guide to ingredients, cooking methods, baking utensils, and decorating tips, you'll have everything you need to create a magnificent wedding cake that will be remembered and cherished by everyone. Your purchase comes with benefits including...a membership to Lorelie's exclusive cake support group, step by step video, a discount coupon for Cake Stackers, printable guides to pan sizes with number of servings, cups of batter, baking temperatures, baking times and cups of icing to frost and decorate. It also includes a guide to bakers measures and equivalents, emergency substitutions, cake ingredients, functions, fails and causes, a photo tutorial of delivering your cakes, plus cake decorating ideas and instruction.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME? Heralded as “impossible to put down” (Elle), and named a Best Book of the Summer by Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire, and Us Weekly, Eight Hundred Grapes is a heartbreaking, funny, and deeply evocative novel about love, marriage, family, wine, and the treacherous terrain in which they all intersect. There are secrets you share, and secrets you hide… What if your beloved fiancé, he of the crinkly smile and irresistible British accent, had kept a life-changing secret from you? And what if, just a week before your dream wedding, you discovered it? Georgia Ford, bride-to-be, hops in her car and drives through the night, from Los Angeles to Sonoma, to her safe haven: her family, and the acclaimed family winery. Georgia craves the company of those who know her best, and whom she truly knows. Better yet, it’s the eve of the last harvest—the best time of the growing season, and Georgia knows she’ll find solace—and distraction—in the familiar rituals. But when Georgia arrives home, nothing is at all familiar. Her parents, her brothers, the family business, are all unrecognizable. It seems her fiancé isn’t the only one who’s been keeping secrets… Eight Hundred Grapes is a story about the messy realities of family, the strength (and weaknesses) of romantic love, and the importance of finding a place to call home. “This winning tale will both satisfy on a literary level and encourage oenophiles to pour themselves a glass of a recent vintage to enjoy while reading; it’s a tasty treat for wine lovers and teetotalers alike” (Publishers Weekly). You won’t be able to put this “addictive” (Us Weekly) novel down.
A rich romp through untold American history featuring fabulous characters, The Wild Vine is the tale of a little-known American grape that rocked the fine-wine world of the nineteenth century and is poised to do so again today. Author Todd Kliman sets out on an epic quest to unravel the mystery behind Norton, a grape used to make a Missouri wine that claimed a prestigious gold medal at an international exhibition in Vienna in 1873. At a time when the vineyards of France were being ravaged by phylloxera, this grape seemed to promise a bright future for a truly American brand of wine-making, earthy and wild. And then Norton all but vanished. What happened? The narrative begins more than a hundred years before California wines were thought to have put America on the map as a wine-making nation and weaves together the lives of a fascinating cast of renegades. We encounter the suicidal Dr. Daniel Norton, tinkering in his experimental garden in 1820s Richmond, Virginia. Half on purpose and half by chance, he creates a hybrid grape that can withstand the harsh New World climate and produce good, drinkable wine, thus succeeding where so many others had failed so fantastically before, from the Jamestown colonists to Thomas Jefferson himself. Thanks to an influential Long Island, New York, seed catalog, the grape moves west, where it is picked up in Missouri by German immigrants who craft the historic 1873 bottling. Prohibition sees these vineyards burned to the ground by government order, but bootleggers keep the grape alive in hidden backwoods plots. Generations later, retired Air Force pilot Dennis Horton, who grew up playing in the abandoned wine caves of the very winery that produced the 1873 Norton, brings cuttings of the grape back home to Virginia. Here, dot-com-millionaire-turned-vintner Jenni McCloud, on an improbable journey of her own, becomes Norton’s ultimate champion, deciding, against all odds, to stake her entire reputation on the outsider grape. Brilliant and provocative, The Wild Vine shares with readers a great American secret, resuscitating the Norton grape and its elusive, inky drink and forever changing the way we look at wine, America, and long-cherished notions of identity and reinvention.
