Just Books’ Pick of the Week

JUST BOOKS’ PICK OF THE WEEK: by Steele Hearne

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

In Erica Bauermeister’s debut novel of a Monday night cooking class, eight people gather once a month to learn from Lillian, a chef and restaurant owner, who believes in the healing and magical properties of food. As she shares her understanding and expertise with her students, the reader is quickly drawn into the lessons, and into the lives of her students as well.
As Lillian tells her class, there is no list of “essential ingredients” or recipe handouts – everyone will learn what they need to. Cooking and food, while shared with others, become very personal; every class is told from the perspective of a different student, with the meal having a certain impact on their life. From finding a part of themselves that was lost, to letting a part of themselves go, Lillian’s food encourages the students to come to terms with his or her past, present, and future.
In The School of Essential Ingredients, Lillian instructs her students to truly cook food for the soul. Bauermeister shares each character’s story with grace and integrity, as well as great insight, from the misfit teenager, to the recent widower, to the head chef Lillian, herself. The prose seamlessly blends Lillian’s recipes and vignettes of the students’ lives, along with lessons about life and love. The School of Essential Ingredients tells of the joyous and tragic moments in life, and of nine lives brought together by food.

The School of Essential Ingredients is available at Just Books , 28 Arcadia Road, Old Greenwich