The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
2 Rating(s)
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The School of Essential Ingredients

Author: Erica Bauermeister

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 6 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/22/2009


Synopsis

From the author of Reese Witherspoon's Book Club pick The Scent Keeper comes a “heartbreakingly delicious” national bestseller about a chef, her students, and the evocative lessons that food teaches about life. 

Once a month on a Monday night, eight students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect.

The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian's soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. And soon they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create....

About The Author

Erica Bauermeister is the author of The School of Essential Ingredients, 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide, Let's Heart It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14, and Joy for Beginners. She  was born in Pasadena, California and currently lives in Seattle with her family. Bauermeister received a PhD at the University of Washington. Cassandra Campbell is an actress, director, and teacher who has performed in New York at the Public Theater, the Mint Theater, and the Clurman Theatre. She is an accomplished voice-over artist whose credits include numerous audiobooks, documentaries, and commercials in both Italian and English.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brenda

The School of Essential Ingredients is a story of a cooking class, but is oh so much more! The spices, smells, textures, and flavors throughout the book are used as connection points to the students, their lives, memories, needs, and secrets. As you read this book, you get a warm, cozy feeling from......more

To read this book, you absolutely need to love food. I do, even if I prefer eating than cooking! I'm a real foodie and reading all these food descriptions made my stomach rumble. On the other hand, at a certain point, these same descriptions tired me a little bit... I really liked the first chapt......more

Goodreads review by Jackie

***oops--I misposted this review with the wrong book earlier this week. Sorry! I'm blaming holiday craziness! This is a glorious book. It's about food as a touchstone and a means for memory, community, nurturing, healing, loving, seduction, sustenance, pleasure, joy, beginning, endings--life. It is t......more

While I did finish this book, mainly to read about the food, this topic has been done before and done better, I think (by Joanne Harris and Sarah Addison Allen). I did not mind the magical realism (I am a fan of Alice Hoffman's, after all!) but the writing left a lot to be desired. I found the writi......more


Quotes

Praise for The School of Essential Ingredients

“Delectable writing.”—Seattle Magazine
 
“Food Network fans will devour this first novel about a whimsical cooking school run by a gentle chef with a fierce passion for food.”—People
 
“Lyrical and descriptive.”—The Oregonian
 
“Bauermeister deftly combines romance, lyrical language and a dash of sentimentality.”—St. Petersburg Times
 
“[A] warm, satisfying exploration of food, cooking and memory…evocative.”—The Star-Ledger (NJ)
 
“The novel has that...life-is-meals feeling.”—Los Angeles Times

“In this remarkable debut, Bauermeister creates a captivating world where the pleasures and particulars of sophisticated food come to mean much more than simple epicurean indulgence.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Exquisitely written...It’s a luscious slice of life...and you will enjoy every bite.”—*New York Times bestselling author Sarah Addison
 
“The perfect recipe for escaping from life’s stresses...luminous prose.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Kate Jacobs