When her life falls apart on the eve of her 40th birthday, Kate Parker finds herself volunteering at the Lauderdale House for Exceptional Ladies. There she meets 97-year-old Cecily Finn. Cecily's tongue is as sharp as her mind, but she's fed up with pretty much everything. Having no patience with Kate's choices, Cecily prescribes her a self-help book with a difference. Food for Thought, a charming 1950s cookbook high on enthusiasm, features menus for anything life can throw at the "easily dismayed." So begins an unlikely friendship between two lonely and stubborn souls—one at the end of her life, one stuck in the middle—who both discover one big life lesson: no one should ever be ashamed to ask for more.