The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

I have two daughters, 11 and 13, who read between 3 and 5 books a week. Often, when they finish a book, they tell me, "Mom, you should really read this. It's so good." I dutifully add the title to my list, knowing that I probably will never get to it. I have enough trouble getting through the Sunday New York Times newspaper that is delivered to my doorstep each weekend, the couple of magazines to which I subscribe, and the one book chosen by my book group for discussion each month. So when Lucy came up with the idea of reading a book a week, and blogging about it, I embraced the challenge. I've got to show my girls I can keep up!

When I climbed into bed at the end of a long day to read the final chapter of Erica Bauermeister's book The School of Essential Ingredients, I felt like tucking a napkin under my chin. I had fallen into the comfortable rhythm of this book, and was looking forward to savoring vicariously one last delectable Slow Food meal and the interwoven peek into the private life of the last of the eight students whom I had been getting to know. The conclusion did not disappoint, and when I closed the book, I had a satisfied feeling in both my stomach and my heart.

Each chapter takes the reader into the intimacy of Lillian's restaurant kitchen for one of a series of eight Monday night cooking classes, and also into the past of that night's student "helper". To call them cooking classes, however, is to miss the point. They are more like life lessons, intuitively aimed at exactly what that week's special student needs at that moment. Even in her childhood, Lillian is wise about life and food: "It was the cooking that occurred in her friends' homes that fascinated Lillian--the aromas that started calling to her just when she had to go home in the evening. Some smells were sharp, an olfactory clatter of heels across a hardwood floor. Others felt like the warmth in the air at the far end of summer. Lillian watched as the scent of melting cheese brought children languidly from their rooms, saw how the garlic made them talkative, jokes expanding into stories of their days. Lillian thought it odd that not all mothers seemed to see it--Sarah's mother, for instance, always cooked curry when she was fighting with her teenage daughter, its smell rocketing through the house like a challenge." It's no wonder her students look forward each week not just to sampling her food, but to being in her presence and listening to her voice, as did I each evening as I curled up to read. The descriptions of the meal preparations are a feast for the senses and the portraits of the students and Lillian herself are just as rich.

If you love food and are yearning for an escape from the busy-ness of your life, you'll delight in the slowness and deliciousness of this book. You might even find yourself dashing out, not to your favorite restaurant, but to the produce section of your favorite market to linger among the apples, holding them to your nose and inhaling deeply, as I did. Through reading this book, I became one of Lillian's students as well, wishing that I could stumble into her kitchen in my neighborhood and be nourished by her food and words of wisdom, like these: "It's not easy to slow our lives down. But just in case we need a little help, we have a natural opportunity, three times a day, to relearn the lesson."