Erica Bauermeister's novel The School of Essential Ingredients is a good summer read. It's a hymn to food and friendship set in Lillian's kitchen where a cooking class meets each Monday night when her restaurant is closed to the public. Each attendee has a chapter detailing his or her woes and successes and they melt into one at the end. Food plays an important part in their recovery, as does the company they keep.
I am reading at the moment The Owl and Moon Cafe. It is about four generations of women with the plot centered in a California cafe. They all have the known foibles, successes, trials and tribulations, that are thrown into the stew of life. I like these women for different reasons and so I read more slowly, trying to keep them within my reading circle.
To take the edge off of the Lisa Gardner Live to Tell that I am also reading, I have bought some other foodie books as a relief to gore and sin that stirs the evil bones of our society. Lisa is a prolific writer and not all of her books are a home run with me, but the last three that I have read were really gripping. She ferrets out the evil in our world and holds it up as a warning.
The Baker's Apprentice and Bread Alone are both by the same author, Judith Ryan Hendricks. I haven't gotten in to them as yet. I try to keep two books going at once and that is enough with all that I have to do now days. My life is full with cooking, traveling, and nurturing those in need right now. Life is slapping a few of my family members around, as it does to all of us at one time or another, so I am pleased to give them the love and help that they need and the healing food that nurtures them.
Note: I am eating my words. I can't put down Bread Alone and I have lost interest in The Owl and Moon Cafe. May be just my mood, but I really like Bread Alone and Hendrick's style of writing.
Note: Finished Bread Alone and discovered The Baker's Apprentice is a continuation of the story from Bread Alone. I'm a happy woman.
