The school of essential ingredients

Erica Bauermeister

Book - 2009

Eight students 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 as 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.

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Subjects
Published
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons c2009.
Language
English
Main Author
Erica Bauermeister (-)
Item Description
Published in paperback (with different pagination) by Berkley in 2010.
Physical Description
240 p. ; 22 cm
ISBN
9780425232095
9780399155437
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Each section of this tasty novel tells the story of a different character. The effect is a series of pearl-like vignettes stretched out along a narrative string. Anchoring the tales of these divergent individuals is their common participation in a cooking class run by Lillian, a restaurateur who teaches her pupils not by dictating a recipe's precise instructions but by encouraging them to use their senses to comprehend what's evolving as she works through the cooking processes from raw ingredients to the ready-to-eat dish. Lillian herself learned the power of food from drawing her mother out of the depression of a failed marriage by feeding her mashed potatoes. Older students Carl and Helen recall how they held their marriage together over the years. Most touching of the characters, lawyer Tom comes to Lillian's cooking school to assuage the grief from loss of his doomed spouse.--Knoblauch, Mark Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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. Respected chef and restaurateur Lillian has spent much of her 30-something years in the kitchen, looking for meaning and satisfaction in evocative, delicious combinations of ingredients. Endeavoring to instill that love and know-how in others, Lillian holds a season of Monday evening cooking classes in her restaurant. The novel takes up the story of each of her students, navigating readers through the personal dramas, memories and musings stirred up as the characters handle, slice, chop, blend, smell and taste. Each student's affecting story--painful transitions, difficult choices--is rendered in vivid prose and woven together with confidence. Delivering memorable story lines and characters while seducing the senses, Bauermeister's tale of food and hope is certain to satisfy. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

A widower, a young mom, an immigrant, and more gather at Lillian's Restaurant for lessons in cooking and in life. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Take a batch of characters, toss them into one cooking class, glaze heavily with folk wisdom. Lillian, the Pacific Northwest restaurant owner and teacher of the Monday night school of the book's title, is part matchmaker, part Buddhist priest, part Alice Waters. She specializes in organic ingredients and a slow-cooking, who-needs-recipes style, an approach she perfected as a child when her dad ran off and her mother retreated into books. Cooking, for her, is a pathway to healing, and conveniently enough her latest group of students could each use some help. Among them are Chloe, a young woman who's klutzy and in a bad relationship; Tom, who's mourning the death of his wife; Claire, a mom who fears motherhood is erasing her identity; Ian, a computer engineer who's incapable even of cooking a pot of rice; and Carl and Helen, an older couple who've gotten past a history of infidelity. Together they reminisce, vent and learn their way around crab dishes, cakes and Thanksgiving dinners, even though Lillian's stingy about instructions and the entrees aren't exactly beginners' fare. Bauermeister capably evokes the sensual pleasures of a busy kitchen, but her story is thickly sentimental, all smoothed edges and earnest dialogue. For instance, one character introduces herself, ridiculously, by saying, "before you start cooking with me, I should tell you, I am losing my way, these days." No worries: Lillian will assuredly give her and the rest of the class some direction, and Bauermeister guides each individual's story along with a pitiless blitzkrieg of soft-focus similes and metaphorseach action and detail persistently equates to a dancing child, a happy puppy, a down comforter, a butterfly or a flower. To her credit, the author pulls off a tough trick of juggling an assortment of characters and making each feel lived-in and human. But as she inevitably guides each toward bliss, the book feels less empathetic and more hokey and melodramatic. The stifling humidity of the prose will push a lot of readers out of this kitchen. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Table of Contents   Title Page Copyright Page Dedication   Lillian Claire Carl Antonia Tom Chloe Isabelle Helen Ian   Epilogue Special Excerpt from The Lost Art of Mixing Special Excerpt from The Joy For Beginners Acknowledgments About the Author G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Publishers Since 1838 Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Canada • Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, • England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books • Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty • Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, • India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand • Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa   Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England   Copyright © 2009 by Erica Bauermeister All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.   Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   Bauermeister, Erica. The school of essential ingredients / Erica Bauermeister. p. cm. ISBN: 9781101015698 1. Women cooks--Fiction. 2. Cooking schools--Fiction. 3. Friendship--Fiction. I. Title. PS3602.A9357S 813'.6--dc22     This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.   While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. For Heidi, Karin, and Dad Prologue L illian loved best the moment before she turned on the Lights. She would stand in the restaurant kitchen doorway, rain-soaked air behind her, and let the smells come to her--ripe sourdough yeast, sweet-dirt coffee, and garlic, mellowing as it lingered. Under them, more elusive, stirred the faint essence of fresh meat, raw tomatoes, cantaloupe, water on lettuce. Lillian breathed in, feeling the smells move about and through her, even as she searched out those that might suggest a rotting orange at the bottom of a pile, or whether the new assistant chef was still double-dosing the curry dishes. She was. The girl was a daughter of a friend and good enough with knives, but some days, Lillian thought with a sigh, it was like trying to teach subtlety to a thunderstorm. But tonight was Monday. No assistant chefs, no customers looking for solace or celebration. Tonight was Monday, cooking-class night. After seven years of teaching, Lillian knew how her students would arrive on the first night of class--walking through the kitchen door alone or in ad hoc groups of two or three that had met up on the walkway to the mostly darkened restaurant, holding the low, nervous conversations of strangers who will soon touch one another's food. Once inside, some would clump together, making those first motions toward connection, while others would roam the kitchen, fingers stroking brass pots or picking up a glowing red pepper, like small children drawn to the low-hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree. Lillian loved to watch her students at this moment--they were elements that would become more complex and intriguing as they mixed with one another, but at the beginning, placed in relief by their unfamiliar surroundings, their essence was clear. A young man reaching out to touch the shoulder of the still younger woman next to him--"What's your name?"--as her hand dropped to the stainless-steel counter and traced its smooth surface. Another woman standing alone, her mind still lingering with--a child? a lover? Every once in a while there was a couple, in love or ruins. Excerpted from The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.