The School of Essential Ingredients

I am not exactly sure where the new craze for "foodie" or "recipe" type books came from but I am loving it. I just finished The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister and wow, just wow. The book was one of my favorite books I have read all year. It was the type of book that has passages that I would read and then re-read just to feel the words again.

One of my favorite passages that I read multiple times is this amazingness: "He sank into the warmth of his child's fragile body against his shoulder, watched in awe that a baby, still essentially asleep, could keep a death grip on the blanket that meant the world was safe and loving, marveling at the thought that it was he and Helen who gave the feeling to the blanket, and the blanket to the child."

That was just a little taste of the book. The book is amazing!

The book is about a cooking class that is held once a week. The story is told by devoting a chapter to each of the attendees at the cooking class, telling their stories and weaving in their participation in the class and the lessons they learn. It begins with the instructor, Lillian, who is a master of matching spices to individual moods. She began cooking at a young age out of self-preservation and used food to draw out her emotionally absent mother. Lillian has a beautiful ability in her cooking classes to tie cooking into each of her student's lives in a subtle and extraordinary way.

The story continues with each of the students stories interwoven with the weekly course. The characters are so delightfully described that you wish you had been in the class with them just to learn from each of them and get to know them personally. I felt invested in each of their lives and treasured the pages dedicated to each of them. I felt so happy when I finished the book and I have nothing but absolute rave reviews for this book.

Read it. Buy it for yourself for Christmas!