Excerpt from Fortune In Your Cookies by Meena Cheng, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Maybe if you had met the bad twin twenty years ago and cooked him your marvelous beef stew, you could have taught him the secret to great wealth and the power of compound interest. Besides, you always have this twisted soft spot for the bad guys, so you two might just hit it off." I winked and she bursted out laughing.

"Skye, darling," Ronnie almost purred. "If I wanted to impress a guy, beef stew would be the last thing I'd try to charm him with. It takes something with a little more flair, a chocolate soufflé maybe, to woo a guy."

I wasn't going to argue with her on that, since that's exactly how she lured her husband to the altar.

"But my point is," I said, "there may be nothing exciting about making beef stew, but you always know that what you have at the end is something predictably delicious. It's the same thing with growing our money over time – it's not in the least exciting, but it's the best and most reliable ingredient to create great wealth."

I leaned over the table and playfully added, "And just look at the benefits of cooking beef stew for this guy. Instead of slaving in the kitchen over the soufflé, and worrying if it would fall flat in that critical moment when your guy was watching, you get to cozy up with him all day to see if he qualifies to move to your soufflé stage. You have plenty of time to dazzle him with your cooking prowess if he proves himself to be worth your while."

Ronnie laughed. "Aren't we glad we are no longer in the dating game?"

I raised my glass, with only a sip of wine left, and said, "You bet!"

Copyright 2001 by Meena Cheng. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author: [email protected]