Maybe she just hasn't read the books for years? But I feel like if you were going to make a meal/recipe based on a book, you would at very least flip through to read the food-related parts, surely.

The Life after Life book sounds vaguely reminiscent of the Jo Walton book My Real Children, which I found very frustrating. It is an interesting concept, but I'm not sure what kind of execution I actually would find satisfying.