When is cooking more than just a means to a meal? When it’s flavored with love, friendship and healing.
If you follow my blog, you may be familiar with my Cooking with Friends group. It’s a group of unconnected friends from various walks of my life that I brought together for monthly food, fun and fellowship.
I discovered “The School of Essential Ingredients” by Erica Bauermeister purely by chance, digging around in a book recommendation app. Because of my Cooking with Friends group, I thought it might be a fun read, and perhaps one that others in my group would enjoy. Reality is, the book was so much more for me.
The story is about a woman who, as a very young girl, learned that food was a way to reach her disconnected mother. Years later as a professional chef, she opens her kitchen for cooking lessons to a group of people who are not only disconnected from each other, but struggling to find meaning, connection and fulfillment in their lives, just as she is.
The result is a touching story, beautifully written. The author is wonderfully visual; you can picture yourself in the scenes, hear the sounds and smell the aromas of her kitchen. She presents each character’s emotions – their joys, fears, sadness, confusion, and love – with such clarity that you feel every emotion right along with them.
While this isn’t a long book at 156pgs, it will take you on a journey that will fill your senses with humor, heartbreak, joy, and the aroma of a perfectly cooked lobster bisque. It’s a perfect summer read, so grab a glass of your favorite sangria, sit back in your favorite sun chair, and lose yourself in this wonderful read.
