School of Essential Ingredients (Bauermeister) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
School is a tale where strangers unite over food, each rediscovering their own essence via cooking’s wonders and pleasures…. Bauermeister manages to keep them fresh and their stories enticing though a series of achingly real vignettes and devastating flashbacks. And her cooking descriptions (fresh crab, handmade tortillas, luscious fondue, pasta sauce simmered for hours, a to-die-for tiramisu) will compel readers to hit the farmers market and run for the kitchen.
Seattle Times


Food Network fans will devour this first novel about a whimsical cooking school run by a gentle chef with a fierce passion for food.
People


In this remarkable debut, Bauermeister creates a captivating world where the pleasures and particulars of sophisticated food come to mean much more than simple epicurean indulgence. Respected chef and restaurateur Lillian has spent much of her 30-something years in the kitchen, looking for meaning and satisfaction in evocative, delicious combinations of ingredients. Endeavoring to instill that love and know-how in others, Lillian holds a season of Monday evening cooking classes in her restaurant. The novel takes up the story of each of her students, navigating readers through the personal dramas, memories and musings stirred up as the characters handle, slice, chop, blend, smell and taste. Each student's affecting story-painful transitions, difficult choices-is rendered in vivid prose and woven together with confidence. Delivering memorable story lines and characters while seducing the senses, Bauermeister's tale of food and hope is certain to satisfy.
Publishers Weekly


If the connected stories of Holly's students and the magic of cooking are what captured your readers, then Bauermeister's lush and evocative story should make a great next read. Ever since Lillian was a little girl, she has understood the power of food to fulfill the heart's desire. As a successful restaurant chef, she now hosts a cooking school, helping others explore the magic ingredients that their lives are missing. Told in a series of character studies, the novel illuminates the lives of Claire, a young mother overwhelmed with her new role; Carl and Helen, a long-married couple with a complicated history; and a handful of others (including a Lillian herself). Each finds hope and solace in this novel that unfolds in a pace similar to Senate's and with the same attention to detail and description. — Neal Wyatt, "RA Crossroads," Booksmack!
Library Journal


Cassandra Campbell's exquisite, sensuous vocal tones set the mood for The School of Essential Ingredients—a novel that treats food as emotional metaphor and as therapy. A lovely homage to the soul-healing properties of a sumptuous meal—or an essential ingredient--this work enchants and inspires. The story traces the experiences (internal and external, past and present) of eight cooking-class students who are gathering at Lillian's restaurant. Campbell sweetly and deliberately speaks to the sensations of cookery and taste. While Lillian never shares a recipe in the traditional sense, her culinary creations are "without words," and transform the life of each student with aromas, flavors, and textures that unlock memories and eventual healing. As the students' lives intertwine, there are surprise results—which sparkle with Campbell's lyrical delivery.
AudioFile