1. What is the “way life should be”? How does Kline develop and expand upon this question as the story progresses? Nonna tells Angela that her father “can’t see any other way. To him, this is how life is. And the way it should be” (p. 59). Later, spotting the Maine state slogan on a billboard, Angela wonders if it’s simply “a marketer’s vision of a land of lobsters and blueberries that never has, and never will, exist” (p. 259). How does Angela’s own vision of what her life should be change over time? 

2. How does Angela’s identification with her grandmother, and apparent resistance to her mother’s influence, shape the choices she makes? How does her thinking about these two women change as the story progresses?

3. What does Maine represent to Angela before and after her arrival there?

4. One of the major threads running through this book is the journey of generations of immigrants in America. Nonna clings to old customs; her son mainly wants to assimilate; her granddaughter wants to learn about her cultural traditions. How “Italian” is Angela? How has she been shaped by both the Italian and Irish sides of her heritage?

5. Nonna describes “ il regalo” as the gift of instinctively knowing how to cook. How can this phrase be seen as a larger metaphor for Angela’s experience in the novel?

6. The idea of “home” is very important in this book. What is Nonna’s idea of home? What is Angela’s? How does this novel explore the roots we retain as we move away from our families of origin?

7. What does “ la famiglia” mean to Angela at the beginning of the book? At the end?

8. Angela goes to Maine in search of love, but things don’t turn out as she’d planned. Do you see it as a desperate move or a brave leap of faith? Does her decision to stick it out make sense to you?

9. What role does food play in Angela’s life and in the book?

10. By the end of the book, do you believe that Nonna feels she has led a fulfilling life, or is she, as she laments, filled with regret about the choices she made? 

11. Each person in the cooking class reveals a secret—some mundane, some serious. Nonna reveals a secret, too. How do these revelations add resonance to Angela’s own story?

12. Which character do you find most sympathetic? Most interesting? Most exasperating? 

13. For much of the book, Angela’s relationship with her brother is fractious and distant. How would you characterize their relationship at the end?

14. How does the character of Lindsay function in the story?
 
15. What is the metaphorical significance of the rabbit-fur coat that Nonna gives to Angela when she returns to Maine (p. 258)?

16. As the novel ends, Angela is crossing back into Maine in the middle of winter. What do you think will happen to her? Will she ever open her own restaurant?