The School of Essential Ingredients
by Erica Bauermeister
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Book Summary Information
Author: Erica BauermeisterEdition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2009-01-22
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Book Reviews of The School of Essential Ingredients
Book Review: Beautifully captures the moments of connection between food and life
Summary: 5 Stars
The School of Essential Ingredients captures the moments of connection between food and life in the lives of the eight students that take part in an 8 month cooking class. The class is taught by Lillian, the owner of the restaurant where the class is held. The lessons that they learn release sensations and feelings that allow the students to connect to their inner selves. They learn about love and life and how food connects to the various meanings of love. Each chapter focuses on a student and their life and process of learning through the cooking classes.
This is a book that touches the depth of your heart and soul, if you let it. Just as the students in Lillian's cooking class must learn and grow and allow the lessons to seep through, so do we as readers. It is easy to open your heart and mind while reading this story that sparks the senses so easily that you can envision in your mind the smell of lavender, the taste of dark chocolate melting on your tongue or the feel of the knife slicing an heirloom tomato.
Erica Bauermeister has a gift of writing beautiful prose that is lyrical and sensual. She is able to use words in a manner to describe the simple beauty of food, life and relationships. She captures the essence of life and connects it so perfectly to food. Through the story, Lillian leads the students to connect to what is essential and to the importance of showing your love for others through choosing and preparing the food you serve them. It has made me want to connect more to the food that nourishes us and apply some of the lessons that Lillian has taught through her cooking classes.
Reading The School of Essential Ingredients is like finding the perfect recipe to escape the mundane day to day fast food pace of life and cooking that many of us subscribe to. It will allow you to vicariously savor the varied ingredients in the dishes that the class create and it may even inspire you to create some of your own.
The School of Essential Ingredients is definitely going to be on the list of my most favorite books that I've read this year. It is the kind of book that I can imagine reading over again. I didn't want the book to end. I loved reading every morsel. I enjoy cooking, but this book took cooking to a different level and has challenged me to expand my own skills. I want to find a cooking class like Lillians. This is the first novel written by Erica Bauermeister and I look forward to her next work. I can envision a sequel to The School of Essential Ingredients and certainly hope that the author is considering this.
Summary of The School of Essential Ingredients
Reminiscent of Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate, a gorgeously written novel about life, love, and the magic of food.The School of Essential Ingredients follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian?s Restaurant every Monday night for cooking class. It soon becomes clear, however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Students include Claire, a young mother struggling with the demands of her family; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer learning to adapt to life in America; and Tom, a widower mourning the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Chef Lillian, a woman whose connection with food is both soulful and exacting, helps them to create dishes whose flavor and techniques expand beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of her students? lives. One by one the students are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of Lillian?s food, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love and a peppery heirloom tomato sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Brought together by the power of food and companionship, the lives of the characters mingle and intertwine, united by the revealing nature of what can be created in the kitchen.
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