- ***
NOVEL: The School of Essential Ingredients
AUTHOR: Erica Bauermeister
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2009
REVIEW:
***
You’ve read (or seen) this story before. In Maeve Binchy’s Evening Class (or the movie loosely based on it, Italian for Beginners), what does that collection of people need? Italian language lessons, a new attitude, and each other! In The Jane Austen Book Club (novel or film), what does that collection of people need? Great literature, a new attitude, and each other! In The Enchanted April (or the film, Enchanted April) what does that group of unhappy people need? A trip to Italy, a new attitude, and each other! And so it goes here. We’ve got a mother of young children feeling a loss of her identity, a young woman struggling with boyfriend and career problems, an older woman starting to lose her memory. We’ve got a lonely bachelor, and a broken-hearted widower. We’ve got an immigrant from Italy getting used to life in the USA, and an older couple with some unresolved issues. And we’ve got Lillian, the owner of the restaurant and teacher of the assembled students in this cooking class. She’s something of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl but she’s actually not manic, but rather calm and wise. Maybe she’s got a touch of magic, though…her class transforms lives. What do her students need? Well, you guessed it. Delicious food, a new attitude, and each other!
I’m not really knocking it, though. They’re all lovely people, thoughtful and unfailingly kind, and if I could join their cooking class, and eat at Lillian’s place, I certainly would. It’s a predictable, escapist story, but it’s a lovely story, which is why it’s so popular: excellent food, friendship, camaraderie, romance (of course there’s romance), beauty, self-knowledge, timeless wisdom, and all that’s good in life. It’s a good book for when you’re upset with the world and seeking comfort, when you want to indulge in a bit of fantasy with happy endings for everyone. But much like the featured tiramisu…it doesn’t do to have this kind of thing too often. A little bit is a perfect end to an exquisite meal. A steady diet of it will leave you bloated and make your teeth and belly ache.
***
RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 3 Whistles
***
HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon
***
Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and a cockatiel.
Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com
***
Book Cover Courtesy of Penguin Random House
***
ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:
A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler
A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
A Wandering Eye: Travels with My Phone, Miguel Flores-Vianna
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton
An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer
Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Arthur & George, Julian Barnes
Ayesha at Last, Uzma Jalaluddin
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
Carols and Chaos, Cindy Anstey
Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Death in Profile, Guy Fraser-Sampson
Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan
Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill
Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield
Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland
Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me & You, Lin-Manuel Miranda
H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne
Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole
Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin
How to Bake π–An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, Eugenia Cheng
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Stephanie Barron
Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, edited and revised by Cyndi Giorgis
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater
Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi
Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz
Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
New York New York, Richard Berenholtz
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard
Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein
Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff
Ringworld, Larry Niven Rose Cottage, Mary Stewart
Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli
Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh
Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Still the Promised Land, Natwar Gandhi
Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder
Strength in What Remains: Tracy Kidder
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl
The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler
The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges
The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes, Devoney Looser
The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari
The Great Passage, Shion Miura
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Ice House, Minette Walters
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo
The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. James
The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein
The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah
The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami
The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
The Three Questions, Jon J Muth
The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki
The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang
The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose
Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe
This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, Joan Dye Gussow
Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart
Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young
You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt
