ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Los Angeles Times, Serious Eats Groundbreaking recipes for real desserts—sweetened entirely by fruit and other natural, unexpectedly sweet ingredients—from a pastry cook who’s worked at acclaimed restaurants in New York and France. Brian Levy spent years making pastries the traditional way, with loads of refined sugar and white flour, at distinguished restaurants, inns, and private homes in the United States and Europe. But he discovered another world of desserts—one that few bakers have explored—where there’s no need for cane sugar or coconut sugar, for maple syrup or honey, or for anything like stevia. When Levy succeeded in making a perfect mango custard, harnessing only the natural sweetness of fruit with no added sugar, it was a breakthrough that inspired years of experimentation converting other desserts into nutritious indulgences. In Good & Sweet, Levy stretches this experiment across 100 recipes that ingeniously deploy fruit (dried, juiced, and fresh), nuts, grains, dairy, and fermented products to create sweet treats whose flavor is enriched by whole-food, feel-good ingredients. Every recipe offers substitutions for dietary restrictions and includes a flavorful sweetener that exceeds cane sugar, from freeze-dried sweet corn to coconut cream and apple cider. A Pistachio-Studded Peach Galette gets its wings from fresh fruit, dried apricots, and orange juice; chestnuts, golden raisins, and dried apples perform a pas de trois in Chestnut Ricotta Ice Cream; and dates, milk powder, and a touch of miso paste make for a dense, caramely Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake. With sweets like these—ones that nudge you toward mindful eating but don’t compromise flavor—you’ll never have to give up dessert.

Between the bustling local bakery, helpful neighbors, and down-home wisdom, Sugar Lake is a delicious place to call home—and love is the sweetest risk . . . Alexandrea Gale put her acting career on hold to help keep her family’s bakery in business—and gave it a few eye-catching updates while she was at it. To earn money to return to New York, she puts her design skills to work with a job renovating a once thriving local vintage theater. But Alexandrea didn’t bargain on the owner’s business-minded grandson fighting her every step of the way—or proving so unexpectedly irresistible . . . As the new head of his family’s real estate business, Kellen Kilborn feels that selling the theater is the only way to do right by the grandmother who helped raise him. He just can’t take a risk on Alexandrea’s inventive ideas—but he also can’t walk away from her warm-hearted free spirit. As troubling decisions threaten to tear them apart, can they create a way to turn their dreams into the sweetest of futures together? Praise for the Sugar Lake series “Readers will love [these] warm, witty characters who remind us all that happiness and love come only when we’re brave enough to follow our hearts.” —Jamie Beck, bestselling author of When You Knew “Perfectly captures the charm and enchantment of a small Southern town.” —Farrah Rochon, USA Today bestselling author

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Sweet Dreams is a collection of short stories and poetry. In them, in an amusing way, the author narrates about moral virtues, human vices, and the myriad of consequences that they may lead to. An elephant and a mouse becoming best friends in their quest for stardom, an adopted whale embarking on an altruistic mission, or two deer on a hunting trip in the middle of a city - those are just some of the characters which spring to life on the pages of this book in the first part: Bedtime Stories. They are called “Bedtime Stories” because each of the 9 stories is told through the voice of the same narrator and has a moral lesson to contemplate as we fall asleep. The stories are not only thought-provoking, but they also stimulate the reader’s mind and imagination. The second part, Sleep Tight, is a Love Section comprised of five stories. What would we be without love? The reader will be solving the mystery of an old man that keeps disappearing into the forest on the same day of every year; and will empathize with another man that has a secret in his basement which may or may not save his wife from a silent killer within. The reader will also be amazed at how a stem cell struggles to overcome the burdens of the society when all he wants to do is just love someone. The third part is Sweet Dreams - Mostly Rhyming Stories. There are eleven poems on various topics such as: love, pollution, suicide, loneliness, writer’s block, aging, and several others. They all tell a story of their own. Many of the characters in this book are animals that mimic the best and the worst of human behavior. There are also extra-terrestrials, cells and organs, planets, mythological gods, and ordinary people themselves. They love, make mistakes, get hurt, embark on missions, manipulate, develop friendships, and sacrifice. Their adventures are entertaining and compelling at the same time. Good Night, Sleep Tight, Sweet Dreams will tug at your heart, some stories might bring out a tear, and some will definitely make you smile.

Consists of individuals reports of each of the branches of the department.