Praise for The Change Maker
"Among the many books on leadership, The Change Maker occupies a uniquely powerful position. It is both a moving personal memoir written with grace, eloquence and remarkable honesty and a brilliant study of leadership in both the public and private sectors. This superb work deserves widespread attention."
--Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals

"Al Checchi epitomizes the Jeffersonian ideal of the citizen leader blending common sense, real world experience, and idealism so desperately needed and so glaringly absent in American politics today. In this inspiring and winning memoir he offers penetrating insight and profound ideas to a nation confronting a historical reckoning. America would be well served to heed this message of warning and hope."
--Pat Caddell, pollster and political commentator

"Under Al Checchi's high-octane and creative leadership, Marriott Corporation evolved its business model from being hotel owners to hotel managers, freeing up capital to rapidly expand our business. The Change Maker will inspire you to think big and pursue greatness."
--J. Willard "Bill" Marriott, Jr., Chairman & CEO Marriott Corporation

"Al Checcchi's account of the changes that have taken place over the course of his remarkable life will inspire, inform, and infuriate alike. His honesty and perspective are much needed as we grapple with the challenges and opportunities of our time."--former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey

"Must reading for anyone interested in the issues of leadership, or the development of one leader's life. An engaging memoir and a thoughtful reflection on American political and economic leadership, what has gone wrong and how to make it right."
--Scott Turow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent

"A wonderful and candid view of America from someone who has been in the middle of the action in both the public and private sectors."
--Senator Bill Bradley

"The Change Maker is a richly detailed and compelling narrative of one man's experiences and observations of the recent developments in America's business and political landscape. Al Checchi challenges us to think about where our country is headed and what kind of America we will leave for our children."
--Al Michaels, Sports Broadcaster

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About Al
Al Checchi played transformational roles at three American institutions: Marriott Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, and Northwest Airlines, before taking on the California political establishment as a candidate for governor, authoring a strategic plan for California, The Checchi Plan, and drafting a new "Declaration for Independence." He is married and has three children. Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, and Northwest Airlines, before taking on the California political establishment as a candidate for governor, authoring a strategic plan for California, The Checchi Plan, and drafting a new "Declaration for Independence." He is married and has three children.

Aftertaste: A Novel in Five Courses by Meredith Mileti
Kensington Books
August 30, 2011
0758259913
978-0758259912
384 pages

Fiction Literary Fiction Debut Fiction

Author Bio: Meredith Mileti lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, David, and their three, mostly grown children. Since taking her first home economics course in junior high, Meredith has loved cooking for her family and friends. She is an adventurous and eclectic diner, and appreciates any well-cooked meal, whether from a seaside lobster shack in Bar Harbor, Maine, a friggitorie in Naples, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris or an undiscovered little gem in her own Pittsburgh neighborhood. Aftertaste is her first novel.

Reviewer: Penny Pleasance

Many of us know someone (maybe even ourselves) who at a certain point in his or her life has consciously stopped and thought, "I am in a good place right now. My marriage is good, my children are doing well, my career is flourishing," only to have it all unravel almost as soon as those thoughts are formed. Someone suddenly dies or becomes gravely ill, a job is lost, or, as happens in Aftertaste, a marriage is betrayed through infidelity and the spouse never saw it coming.

There is no end to men (and women, for that matter) behaving badly, but for all of you who have known a cad who has betrayed wife and family, Meredith Mileti's debut novel serves up a satisfying and delicious story of rebuilding a life after everything is suddenly and cruelly taken away.

Laced with plenty of irony, Aftertaste is narrated by Mira Rinaldi who, along with her husband, Jake, is a chef and co-owner of a critically acclaimed New York Italian restaurant called Grappa. Soon after the birth of their first child, Mira walks in on her husband having sex with the maitress d' at the restaurant. Mira's fury is so intense she pounces on Nicola, and when her husband tries to remove her, she hangs on to Nicola's hair so hard that she ends up pulling her hair out, leaving Nicola with a bleeding scalp and landing Mira in a court ordered anger management course.

Wait, Jake is the unfaithful spouse, and Mira is the one being punished? No one ever said life was fair. The scenes with Mira participating in the anger management class at the Manhattan County Courthouse are full of mordant dark humor.

Mira attends her classes where she is instructed by a clinical social worker to "breathe in the clean, white air. When you exhale, picture your breath as black and hot. It is your anger. Release it, and let it go." Meanwhile, 80 blocks up town you can just imagine someone similar to Mira sitting in her Upper West Side therapist's office being encouraged to do exactly the opposite, to get in touch with her anger.

Such is the crazy quilt of alternate universes that coexist in New York. Unfortunately, Mira has landed in the wrong part of town. "The truth is," Mira thinks, "I'm out of control and I know it. I'm out of control and justifiably so. I have just lost everything."

Ms. Mileti, a self-described cooking and dining enthusiast (who is also a developmental psychologist) has shaped this novel around a five-course Italian meal: Antipasti, Primi, Secondi, Contorni, and Dolce. The Kuebler-Ross five stages of grief have now been re-cast as a meal--it may be a tad trite, but so what, it is so much more enjoyable to eat than to grieve.

The first two sections of the book are set in New York, but after losing the restaurant in her divorce settlement Mira moves back to Pittsburgh, her childhood home. Like the difference between New York and Pittsburgh themselves, the New York narrative is so much more intense. In New York, Mira is dealing with raw emotions, once in Pittsburgh, both Mira and the pace of the book slow down.

Nevertheless, this is a keenly observed novel that is, in part, a comedy of manners with several stock (but endearing) characters like the middle-aged gay friend who owns an antique store, the fortysomething lovelorn single Jewish woman who adopts a child, and the seemingly dumb blond who is dating Mira's widowed father who ends up being the wisest of them all, to name but three. Like the supporting characters in a Jane Austen novel, they all have a role to play in helping Mira grow and move forward.

Cooking also plays an important supporting role both literally and figuratively. Mira is a chef, after all, and cooking is what she does. When the going gets tough, Mira gets cooking. There are scores of wonderful scenes of Mira either cooking up a storm or eating her way through Pittsburgh from the perfect biscotti at Bruno's Bakery, to Italian sausages and cheese from The Pennsylvania Macaroni Factory to oversized sandwiches at Primanti Brothers (it's enough to make you want to hop on the next plane to Pittsburgh).

Toward the end of the book, Mira contemplates the role that cooking plays in her own sense of happiness:

"The great gourmand, Auguste Escoffier, once said, 'Good cooking is the essence of true happiness.' Did he mean that happiness is to be found in the act of cooking? Or in the appreciation of the result? . . . Maybe what Escoffier meant was that true happiness is to be found in one's ability to satisfy a basic human need so spectacularly. Those of us content to take our happiness secondhand cook because what we want, what we crave, is to be needed. Nurturers extraordinaire, brokers of comfort, we hope to turn the tables on our own needs by filling the stomachs and souls of the world."

Maybe. Or maybe cooking is the one thing in her life Mira can control. In the end, Aftertaste is a great reminder to all of us that sometimes life can spin out of control, but by and large, with good ingredients, a set of sharp knives and a solid understanding of cooking techniques, we can at least control the outcome in our kitchens.

Meredith Mileti's debut novel is as thoughtful and poignant as it is wickedly funny. It is one to savor--recipes included.

Reviewer Penny Pleasance studied cooking under Henri Levi at his New York cooking school, La Cuisine Sans Peur and has also studied cooking in Brussels and Tuscany. She has lived or worked in New York, London, Brussels, and Strasbourg, France, and has been a cooking enthusiast since she picked up her mother's copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1978.