"Sustainability is about contributing to a society that everybody benefits from, not just going organic because you don't want to die from cancer or have a difficult pregnancy. What is a sustainable restaurant? It's one in which as the restaurant grows, the people grow with it."-from Behind the Kitchen Door How do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions-discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens-affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables? Saru Jayaraman, who launched the national restaurant workers' organization Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, sets out to answer these questions by following the lives of restaurant workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Detroit, and New Orleans. Blending personal narrative and investigative journalism, Jayaraman shows us that the quality of the food that arrives at our restaurant tables depends not only on the sourcing of the ingredients. Our meals benefit from the attention and skill of the people who chop, grill, sauté, and serve. Behind the Kitchen Door is a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of dining out. Jayaraman focuses on the stories of individuals, like Daniel, who grew up on a farm in Ecuador and sought to improve the conditions for employees at Del Posto; the treatment of workers behind the scenes belied the high-toned Slow Food ethic on display in the front of the house. Increasingly, Americans are choosing to dine at restaurants that offer organic, fair-trade, and free-range ingredients for reasons of both health and ethics. Yet few of these diners are aware of the working conditions at the restaurants themselves. But whether you eat haute cuisine or fast food, the well-being of restaurant workers is a pressing concern, affecting our health and safety, local economies, and the life of our communities. Highlighting the roles of the 10 million people, many immigrants, many people of color, who bring their passion, tenacity, and vision to the American dining experience, Jayaraman sets out a bold agenda to raise the living standards of the nation's second-largest private sector workforce-and ensure that dining out is a positive experience on both sides of the kitchen door.

BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR....A Shotgun Wedding, begins in the rural countryside of North Carolina and takes the reader on an adventure and experiences to some of the most exciting cities that one only hears about. From the big, historical city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with all its rich history of America, to the tall skyscrapers and exciting nightlife of Manhattan in New York City, to the sprawling city of Los Angeles, California and to Europe and the romantic, "La Ville-Lumiere" (The City Of Light), Paris, France and the French Riviera. It is a story of love, romance, racism, miscegenation, betrayals, triumphs and tragedies. It is the story of Alene, a pretty, smart,teenager who has to endure a lot of tragedies in her young life and of her family’s struggle in America’s rural south from the mid 1920’s through the Great Depression in the 1930 ́s, dealing with racial segregation and Jim Crow laws. She has to grow up much too fast due to the passing of her mother, after giving birth to her baby sister. Alene who was thirteen and the oldest of eight children, helped her father to raise her younger siblings until her father remarried. She gets pregnant by her boyfriend Julius at age seventeen and tells her father, who beats her mercilessly. She and Julius are forced to go to court and tell the judge where they had sex. They are made to marry. She leaves Julius because of beatings and abuse and move up north to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On her way up north, she experiences first-hand Jim Crow laws of the south, starting with segregated interstate train cars. Once in Philadelphia she meets four young women and they form a lasting friendship. Alene meets and fall in love with Mitch at a jazz club. She becomes seriously ill with tuberculosis, and her father comes and takes her and her little boy back home. Her doctor admits her to a sanitarium for treatment but later tells her and her family that the disease is much worst than he thought. She dies a few months later of the illness.

Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door offers an insider’s look into culinary trends through the words of acclaimed and professionally recognized chefs.

What if everything in your life was a lie? An emotionally tense story of love, loyalty, betrayal and revenge. Perfect for the fans of Louise Jenson. DUBLIN - For the past two years Jill Ryan has tried to keep her darkest secrets deeply buried and remain relatively anonymous. Haunted by her tragic past and struggling to keep her life together, Jill soon realises that the last person she can trust is herself. KILKENNY - Only Heather Martin knows the lengths her husband will go to teach her a lesson and Heather has had enough. Faced with the impossible choice of saving herself or staying to care for her ailing father, Heather has a choice to make. But does she have what it takes to survive? When Detectives Louise Kennedy in Dublin and Tony Kelly in Kilkenny begin to investigate, their dark discoveries collide unravelling a complex web of secrets that stretch far and wide. What readers are saying: 'O'Neill is back with an equally gripping sequel... A remarkable ability to get under the skin of characters... Page-turning prose' Sunday Independent Dublin. 'Behind a Closed Door blew my socks off and is a very cleverly written and addictive read' Ginger Book Geek. 'I thoroughly enjoyed reading this compelling book. Definitely recommend!' Dash Fan Book Reviews. 'I found it haunting, atmospheric, daunting, thrilling and gripping. It's one of those reads that will grip you and spit you out' Read Along with Sue. 'Dark and deep secrets! A well constructed plot that is deeply disturbing! Great story!' Cathy Thompson, NetGalley.

C.A.T.: Tower of Blood - Book #1 from the Men of Action series.

Turbulence at 67 Inches is a life story and a rant in one. The book follows the life of acclaimed poet Howard Camner. The writing is at once brutally honest, very funny, at times heartbreaking, and often inspiring. The journey begins during the Bicentennial. It is America’s 200th birthday. Camner has just been awarded the title of “Most Artistic Body of 1976” in a body painting contest. But at the moment he is sitting in the shallow end of the Atlantic Ocean about to run naked through a very crowded beach. He is not doing it for fun. He is doing it because he has no choice. Seconds after his run begins, several angry men are giving chase in an attempt to kill him. So sets the stage for a life that becomes one wild problem after another. There are encounters with the most bizarre characters this planet has to offer, including a talking dog, a guy who claims that he and his invisible companion are on the lam from a police force from another planet, a woman who fries up Manhattan sewer rats for dinner, and the Devil himself; just to name some of the saner ones. After the streaking episode, which turned into a run for his life, the book hurls us back to the early 1960s where as a young boy the author is trying to figure out who he is. Finding himself in direct competition with the next door neighbor’s talking dog, the boy transforms himself into several memorable characters, including a werewolf, a superhero, a mad scientist, a fake musician, and a secret agent. All of these lead to disastrous moments. Still he plods along, convinced that he is destined for...something. 17 proves to be a difficult and pivotal year with the loss of his grandfather who taught him wisdom the hard way and that one should always wear socks when kissing a girl. Devastated by the loss, the author threatens to use martial arts that he doesn’t know how to use on a future homicidal drug kingpin, becomes a criminal himself, gets repeatedly attacked by a man running for public office, and loses his virginity to an outfielder’s mitt. Needing an outlet other than sex with baseball gloves, he finds that he has a knack for poetry. In 1979 at the age of 22 he heads for New York City to take his place in the literary world. Somehow it clicks and he finds his voice as the headliner with the West End Poetry Troupe. New York provides several narrow escapes, a taste of fame, collisions with a vast array of human oddities, and an on-stage confrontation with a waiter that left the waiter possibly dead and our hero in hiding. This led to a breakdown and a three month period of seclusion with no human contact whatsoever. Snatched from death by his father, he returns to Miami for a brief stint as a beach bum and falls for a Midwestern girl. Following her to Chicago, his life is threatened by her father, so he returns to Miami and meets another girl who makes his life a nightmare because he bought her a Nutty Buddy ice-cream cone instead of the cherry Popsicle she wanted. Narrowly escaping being murdered by a transvestite hooker, he heads for Los Angeles to be rich and famous. His screenplay “Duck, Duck, Goose” creates havoc in Hollywood causing an affair between two Hollywood producers and the break up of a prominent management team. Distraught over the mess his screenplay has caused he turns to acting, falling under the protection of Hell’s Angels on one film and ruining a $30,000 scene in another. He befriends the Mayor of Munchkinland, takes up with a psychotic bitch in Beverly Hills, and risks his life to save the lives of some hummingbirds. Feeling confident after rescuing the hummingbirds, he creates and hosts the worst talk show in the history of television where he interviews Death among other offbeat celebrities, and soon embarks on a mission to seek out celebrity ghosts. Avoiding fame and fortune like no one else has, Camner exits Los Angeles and returns to Florida where he almost gets murdered in a swamp. After a confrontation with a large trigger-happy c