The School of Essential Ingredients

When I turned in my book manuscript recently, after months of intense writing, I wanted two things and two things only. The first was sleep—which I hadn’t had much of in the final stages. That was easily remedied. The next thing I wanted was harder to come by.

I wanted to lose myself in a good book—the sort of book that transports you somewhere else and you become so engaged that you entirely forget about your life and responsibilities and the fact that there are piles of laundry to sort and a stack of unopened mail.

I wanted to be taken away for a brief time, to turn off my everyday brain. My poor brain was worn out and needed a vacation, even for just a day.

The thing is, it’s hard to find such an escape when you need it. I tried a few books but nothing stuck. I even told a friend how sorry I was that I had already read all the Harry Potter books. I am generally skeptical of fads and thus came late to that trend, but as a brief break from everyday life and cares, they did the trick nicely.



I never did find my escape book—suddenly it was Thanksgiving and there was family in town, then a friend came to stay, then my birthday and more family and the holidays and the end of the year built to a crescendo as it always does. I never managed to find the time to lose myself in a good story, not until New Year’s Day.

The book arrived in the mail on New Year’s Eve and I tossed it into my bag as I was heading out of town. I wasn’t sure I would get a chance to read it—there were hiking plans for New Year’s Day on my beloved Mt. Tam—but it seemed wrong to be going out of town without a book. I grabbed it on my way out the door from where it was sitting in the mail pile.

But New Year’s Day dawned cold and foggy—really cold. That morning I grabbed the book, thinking I would read the intro while I sipped my morning cup of tea.

I put the book down five hours later, perfectly satiated and intensely happy.

As someone who has just written a book, it pains me a little to admit I devoured this one in a matter of hours. I now know firsthand the years of work that go into writing a book. The fact that someone would rip through such carefully selected words and painstakingly constructed paragraphs is almost an offense.

But it is surely not an offense when she can’t put it down—when she carries it with her to the kitchen when she is hungry and eats only finger food because she can't be bothered to cook. It can't possibly be an offense when she can’t stop reading.

Yes, it’s one of those books. At least it is for me.



The book is The School of Essential Ingredients, by Erica Bauermeister. It’s the story of a cooking class that meets once a month, and while it is about food and the pleasure and joy of preparing and consuming it, it is also about the lives of the students. Each chapter focuses on the story of a different class participant.

I hesitate to tell you too much about the characters—I don’t want to take away the pleasure of discovery for those of you who might read the book. I will say that each character comes to the kitchen with their own struggles, disappointments, and joys—and that each of them has lingered with me long after I put the book down. By the end they felt almost like friends, I was sorry to leave them.

And the food, oh the food! The food in this book is fabulous. Salty crab and supple pasta and even a silky wedding cake. There's even a description of an avocado that will forever make me smile. The author says they are “wrinkled and grumpy on the outside, green spring within.” For the rest of my life, I will think of avocados as grumpy on the outside.

I am gushing, I realize, so I will bring this to a close. Before I go I will say one thing. There is a bit of debate that rages in the writing world over fiction vs. nonfiction. Nonfiction is real, fiction is just made up—fantasies, even. How can it hold any truth?

Reading The School of Essential Ingredients made me remember that good fiction holds all the truth of the world. A finely-drawn character can take you into a life and experience you may never walk through yourself—what it feels like to be a new mother lost in the sea of caring for a small child; how marriage might be after forty years of consistency and repetition; what it is like to lose one’s spouse, one’s memory, one’s sense of self.

Good fiction holds our humanity, and the process of reading it is like a wave. It lifts us up on the crest of the story and leaves us in a place that is new. It is a place where things look different, where our hearts are a little more open because of what we’ve experienced, where we have a little more compassion and understanding for what life might be like for another person. Good fiction changes us.



A year ago I said I wanted to write more about foodish books on this site—that I would do a monthly feature—but it never happened. The truth is I only want to write about books I fall in love with, and since The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken that hasn’t happened. But I fell in love with The School of Essential Ingredients. It’s a lovely book, filled with the beauty and heartbreak and longing of life. I hope this isn’t the last we’ll see from Erica Bauermeister.

The book goes on sale this week (I requested and received an advance copy from the publisher, but otherwise have no connection to author or title). There are some signing events in the next few weeks up and down the West Coast. I just joined the Facebook group called “Buy a Book, Save the World!” and this is the book I will be lining up to buy. It’s the gift I’m giving to all my food and fiction-loving friends this year.

Because sometimes there is nothing so good as losing yourself in a delicious book.

Interested in checking it out? Here are the links:

On Amazon
Through Powell's
Find an independent bookseller near you!
(Have I mentioned that I am tempted to start my own Facebook group? I'd call it: “Save the World by Buying a Book Through an Independent Bookstore”)

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And while we are on the topic of writing, just tonight I got a sweet email telling me I'd been nominated in the annual food blog awards for best post. It's the essay that made me realize that, even more than food, you guys love the love. It's a personal piece—one I hesitated months before posting, in fact—and thus even more touching to have it selected.

You can read it here: Polenta and Mushrooms and Love Past.

Voting is open until Saturday the 24th, and there are some very talented folks nominated. Pop on over and check it out.

UPDATE: Thanks for all your cheers, votes, and support—the little post about love won!