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Based on the author’s true heartbreak story that went viral, and was discovered in Japan by the editor of the four-million-copy bestseller
Twenty-nine-year-old Momoko has been tragically dumped. She thought she and her boyfriend were soulmates. He even took her to a love hotel, where she believed he was going to propose. Instead, he left her after four years.
So Momoko does what many broken-hearted people do—she gets incredibly drunk. So drunk that she passes out in an empty cafe. When she awakens, she’s eager to tell her story to anyone who will listen, and pours her heart out to a curious manager and the sole other customer in the cafe, a monk who trains at a temple nearby. When she starts to describe how she doted on her boyfriend, how he loved her cooking, the manager decides to indulge her, and allows her to slip into the kitchen, and cook up her ex’s favorite dish: a warm, delightful butter chicken curry. As Momoko finishes telling her story, she realizes this combination of cooking and sharing has healed her heart in a way nothing else can.
The cafe is failing—subpar curry and a remote location has led to months of financial troubles. But as he devours Momoko’s dish, the manager gets an idea about how to save the business: what if they started doing this regularly, inviting in patrons to share stories about breakups, heartbreaks, and tragic endings, cooking dishes that meant something to the relationship? Like an unconventional therapy group, the “Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee” is born, with Momoko leading the Friday night sessions, and the monk-in-training offering blessings.
Inspired by the author’s actual experience working at a café where she posted a recipe called “My Ex’s Favorite Butter Chicken Curry,”
