Peeking Between the Pages

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Book Review: The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

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The School of Essential Ingredients is Erica Bauermeister’s first novel and what a novel it is! I have to say right off that I loved it! It is beautifully written with language that just seems to flow so smoothly throughout. From the very first page I was hooked and it took me a while longer to read this book as I stopped to re-read many passages just because they sounded so beautiful to me.

I love food and I love cooking so I think this goes a long way to making this book more beautiful to me. I love to pick up things I’m cooking with or eating and just smell them and experience them. It’s wonderful and that’s what this book is about-the things that food can teach us about life. For me, it’s about slowing down and really taking the time to experience the different tastes and feelings certain foods will give me.

On to the novel. It is about Lillian who owns a restaurant that sounds like a fantasy in itself. She teaches a cooking lesson each Monday night and the novel follows the lives of the eight people who take the class. There is Claire, a young mom who is struggling with the demands of two young children, a husband and all that goes with that. Then there is Carl and Helen, they are married but have experienced many up and downs in their marriage that has brought them to the loving couple they are now. We’ve got Antonia who is learning about American life having come from Italy and Tom, a widower, still struggling a great deal with the loss of his beloved wife. The last ones are Chloe, a very young girl, just trying to make something out of her life without breaking everything around her, and Ian, a budding chef who falls hopelessly in love with one of the ladies. Finally there is Isabelle, an older lady who is beginning to lose her memories but is so endearing. This book is about their stories and how food comes to bring them together and realize things about their lives they hadn’t known before.

Erica has brought these characters to life on these pages. I felt as though I was personally involved in each and every one of their lives. I can’t even say I had a favorite character in this novel because truthfully I felt drawn to all of them in different ways. I really loved the character of Lillian herself. She struggled as a girl with a mother who had her nose constantly buried in a book and therefore found her solace in cooking which became a lifelong passion. There are way too many passages in this book that I loved but I’ll share a few that I found especially wonderful…

  • ‘Aromas that started calling to her’…’Some smells were sharp, an olfactory clatter of heels across a hardwood floor. Others felt like the warmth in the air at the far end of summer’.

  • Making a white sauce…’and Lillian looked at the sauce, an untouched snowfield, its smell the feeling of quiet at the end of an illness, when the world is starting to feel gentle and welcoming once again’.

  • ‘The more she cooked, the more she began to view spices as carriers of the emotions and memories of the places they were originally from and all those they had traveled through over the years’.

There’s so many more like that, all throughout the book. The last quote for me rings so true. How many times do you walk in a room or somewhere else and smell that certain spice and then relive the memories it brings back. As I said for me this book was beautiful. I loved the descriptions of food and could almost smell the aromas drifting from the pages.

I thorougly enjoyed this novel and would love to thank Erica for sending it to me. I was lucky enough to receive the last copy she had and for that I’m grateful. I don’t do this often, but Erica’s is one book I’m going to order in hardcover to keep on my shelves and go back to for a comfort read because that’s what this book felt like to me-comfort. You can visit Erica’s website here and you can buy her book in Canada here and in the US here.

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Comments

  2. Oh my gosh, but does that sound good. It’s in my TBR pile and I hope to get to it soon. Thanks for the review.

  3. Ramya, thanks. I just loved it.

    Kathy, I think you’ll really like this one as you like food and cooking like me.

  5. Ti, it was wonderful. I’ll probably be doing a giveaway for my arc as I’m going to pick up the hardcover when it’s released.

  7. I just got an ARC copy of this today, and it sounds great! I’ve got so much on my list for this month already, but I’m going to have to figure out something to bump so I can read this sooner rather than later!

  8. I love your review Dar – and agree with you on the last quote. Especially at Christmas. The smell of sage and cloves invariably brings me back to my grandmother’s kitchen…

  9. This sounds like an amazing book and what a great review! I have to add this one to my TBR 🙂

  12. Beautiful review, Dar. This is in my TBR pile and now I’m really looking forward to it!

  13. Loved your review Dar. This is the second time I’ve read about this book and both have been favorable. I’ve got it down for a must-read of 2009!!

  15. Great review, Dar. I just discovered this in a stack of ARCs that I received an overlooked (yes, it’s getting that bad!). I definitely need to bump it up on my review calendar!

  18. great review, Dar … this one is in my TBR, too.

    Some smells of food/spices bring back childhood memories.

  19. Oh Dar… this sounds like a good one. Thanks for the review.. 🙂 I like the sampling of quotes.

  20. April, thanks so much for the award. I really appreciate it.

    Fyrefly, I hope you like it as much as I did. I just loved it.

    Luanne, thanks. It is amazing how smells take us to different places.

    Sam, thanks 🙂

    Janel, I do think you’d like this one for sure.

    Serena, thanks again for my award. It means a lot.

    Michele, I can’t wait to see what you’ll think of this novel.

    Staci, it’s definitely one of my favorites for 2009.

    Naida, absolutely. It made me want to linger over the words and pages-I love when a book does that for me.

    Jenn, I’ll be watching to see what you think of it when you get to it. lol.

    Melody, thanks 🙂 The cover is really pretty isn’t it.

    Swapna, thanks. I’m going to have a giveaway for it next week if you don’t already have it.

    Dawn, thanks. I’ll be watching for your review.

    Toni, thanks so much. I love how she related certain things to food like with the white sauce-I just found that beautiful.

  22. Loved your review, Dar!

    Just checked my local library and they have it on order, yea. 🙂

  23. Anna, I hope you do get to read it one day soon.

    Wanda, thanks. I’m glad your library is bringing the book in. I’ll have to peek if ours is. They’re usually pretty good about bringing new books in if you request that they purchase them.

  24. this reminds me of a book my mom read – the sharper your knife the less you cry. it was very interesting. it was about a woman who lost her job and decided to study at le cordon blue in france to become a classically trained chef. you might like it if you’ve not read it already.

  26. Oh wow, Dar! What a positively beautiful and excellent review! I have not heard of nor seen this book, but after reading your review, I am doing to try and get my greedy little hands on a copy very soon! I need more books like I need a hole in the head – but that is just how it is, lol!

  27. Dar, What a wonderful review! I love books about cooking and food as well. I tried to get an advanced copy of this book but they had run out of copies. I was SO disapointed so I will definitely look for your giveaway contest if you decide to do that. I just may use my amazon gift certificate and buy this one as it looks so good.

  28. Bandit, I’m going to check out that book. It does sound like something I’d like.

    Holly, thanks 🙂

    April, thanks so much 🙂 I know what you mean. I have so many books to read and yet when I see one that sounds good to me I need to have it too. lol.

    Bonnie, thanks. I’ll be having a giveaway of my copy when my Sundays at Tiffany’s is over. I’m planning on picking myself up a hardcover of this one.

  30. What a beautiful review, Dar! Those quotes you used left me really hungry and my mouth watering! I love books about food as well, but wish I had more time to dabble in the kitchen.

  31. Trish, thanks. I know what you mean by the quotes making your mouth water. Dabbling in the kitchen does take a lot of time. I wish I could experiment more too.

  32. I’m on page 15 of this one and I had to stop reading to gush about it on my blog! I’m thrilled to hear that the rest of it lived up to the standards of the beginning. (Jill told me of your giveaway so I added a link to my post).

  33. This sounds like a beautiful book, there is nothing better than a book with food connections. I will always remember reading ‘Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe’ purely because of the food connections. I think it might be because I worked in restaurants to pay for my university. Oh those were the days.

  34. Ali, thanks again for linking my contest on your page. I’ll be watching for you review. I too think this novel is worth gushing about.

    Scrap girl, I agree-a book with food connections will always haul me in. They are really like comfort reads for me.

  36. Okay, I am going to the the only freak who comments…lol! I avoid fiction books that have food as a focal point. It will send me on an eating binge. No joke!

  37. Teddy, thanks so much.

    J.Kaye, that’s not weird at all. REading about some of the dishes definitely makes me hungry and sends me on a food finding mission but I still love the stories. You’re funny though.