Lost Art of Mixing (Bauermeister) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Harrowing and graceful at once, this is some of Bauermeister's strongest writing.
Seattle Times


Erica Bauermeister's characters are alive and savory as the food she describes so well...  Most chapters in The Lost Art of Mixing could stand independently, but blended together, they make a memorable novel.  The Seattle author reminds us how the rituals surrounding food sustain us emotionally and spiritually by giving us opportunities to gather as family and community, sharing more fully in one another's lives by taking the time to break bread together.
Portland Oregonian
 

In her sequel to The School of Essential Ingredients, Bauermeister picks up the threads of many of the characters first brought together in Lillian’s cooking classes, adding a few new stories to the mix. Here we follow Al, the restaurant’s accountant, soothed by numbers and flavors but unable to connect with Louise, his wife of 29 years; Chloe, the young sous-chef made timid by a failed relationship; Isabelle, the elderly woman with whom Chloe lives, struggling against the onset of Alzheimer’s; and Finnegan, the impossibly tall dishwasher taking his first stab at independence. Lillian remains a sort of mythic background figure, although her unexpected pregnancy tests her and the touchy relationship she’s having with Tom, a widower. Bauermeister weaves these individual stories in and among one another, but never stays with one character long enough for the reader to grow very attached, robbing each of depth. Still, Bauermeister’s prose is strong, particularly when it comes to food, and her novel brings to life the adage “be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.”
Publishers Weekly


A Seattle chef and her circle of friends cope with life's pivotal moments. In this follow-up to The School of Essential Ingredients (2009), Chef Lillian continues to run her small restaurant, which has become a hub for people in transition. In what is essentially a collection of linked stories...the narrative, carried by so many disparate points of view, never quite comes into focus. So robust and resilient are Bauermeister's characters that readers may wish she had challenged them with thornier dilemmas.
Kirkus Reviews