"The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister (audio)

Have you ever finished a book and noticed that you were glowing? Sort of like you did when you met the person of your dreams, or found a perfect pair of shoes for your Christmas party dress? I've not had this happen often, but it did happen after The School of Essential Ingredients. I was swept away. As some of you know, I have a passion for cooking that is pretty darned close to my passion for reading. For the eat-out-five-nights-a-week person, this is a damned good book. For those that share my passion for cooking, this is a love sonnet written just for you.

Lillian's father left her and her mother to fend for themselves when Lillian was a pre-teen. Lillian's mother disappeared into her books, forgetting that she had a child that needed her. By necessity and prodded by some untapped inner voice, Lillian began cooking. Her goal: to cook her mother out of her funk and back into her life. And she did...she started with mashed potatoes with alot of butter (which would work for me), moved onto coffee doctored with exotic spices, and with patience and love, brought her mother back to life.

As an adult, Lillian has capitalized on her talents to open a restaurant that draws nightly crowds. One Monday night a month, she holds cooking classes for a small group of people, but cooking isn't the only thing going on in there. Lillian is not only a food whisperer, she is a healer of souls. She innately understands what her students need in their lives to reconcile their hearts with their troubles, and she uses food to accomplish this. We are introduced to her latest group of students:

Claire, a young wife and mother who has been swallowed whole by a life that she loves but has caused her to lose herself. Carl and Helen, an older couple that can finish each other's sentences, but are attempting to rebuild their marriage after an affair. Antonia, a beautiful, single girl from Italy who misses her home and its traditions, and struggles to stay true to herself in her interior design job. Chloe, a clumsy teenager with low self-esteem and a domineering boyfriend. Tom, a widower who has recently lost the love of his life to cancer. Isabelle, an elderly divorcee who is in the early stages of dementia. And Ian, a guy looking for love. This group of seemingly mismatched personalities find friendship and peace within each other, and learn the subtle lessons that touching, sensing and creating food can provide.

This is Erica Bauermeister's first novel, and I'll be darned if this girl hasn't found her calling. Sure, she can write. But in experiencing the magic she has created on paper, you understand that she KNOWS food. She knows the sensuality of textures, flavors, the chemistry in combining spices, the quality of a meal when you get into it up to your elbows and make it from scratch. She also obviously gets the human psyche...what it feels like to give birth, to lose a spouse, or want more for yourself. Her warm, delicate prose is nearly hypnotizing. When it's over, you have to shake yourself back to your senses, and want for more.

"Larousse Gastronomique" by Prosper Montagne

When fellow blogger C.B. James (who has an amazing book blog that features his book-eating dog Dakota) asked me to review Larousse Gastronomique as one of his Wednesday Wonders, I instantly got sweaty palms. You see, reviewing my favorite culinary tome of all times could be likened to reviewing the Bible, or War and Peace. How to do it justice? But with a glass of Bordeaux in hand, I pledge to try.

In the spirit of the holidays and gift-giving, this is perfect timing. If you know someone that has a passion for cooking, and equally a passion for literature, look no further for the ultimate gift. Originally written in 1938 in the French language, with 8,500 recipes and over a thousand pages, Larousse is THE world authority on anything remotely related to the culinary arts. It is almost beyond comprehension that this much information could be contained in one book. In 1961, it was translated to English for the first time, which is the edition that I own, and is the picture shown at the left. I found this edition on EBay for less than $20, but trust me that it would be one of the first things I grabbed if my house caught on fire. I received the book with yellowed pages and large splatters on it (wine? sauce? blood?) which even made it more precious to me. Today, Larousse can be found in any superior restaurant and owned by any culinary expert worth his salt.

Larousse would officially be named an encyclopedia/cookbook. To describe it this way, however, is sacriledge. What subject of cooking do you dream of knowing more about? How about agaric fungi, its number of species, where to find them, which are edible, and how to prepare and with which sauce best complements its flavor? Maybe you need to know about alcoholism and all its forms, just to make sure you're OK. A bit of poetry, perhaps, by the French poet Berchoux who prefers to write about gastronomy. And what kind of French reference guide would it be without all things vino? You can take a trip through any of France's divisions and regions, Guyenne, Champagne, Provence, Marche, etc., learn about the culinary specialties of each, as well its wine production. Like eggs? Larousse has over 400 ways to prepare them. You want to butcher your own cow, pig or lamb, or at the very least understand all the cuts? Look no further. If you have any leftover parts, like a pig leg, you will have wonderful advice on how to make good use. Maybe you are a history buff, and would like to better appreciate the evolution of cooking over the ages, from prehistoric times through the present day. Nothing is missed in this little treasure.

One downside of Larousse, if I were pushed to come up with one, would be that it assumes the reader knows something about cooking. Recipes are not laid out in step-by-step detail like you might find in a common cookbook. I also feel that later editions (which you can find anywhere from Barnes and Noble to Williams Sonoma), each one just a little more modern and pristine, loses a little of that shameless passion that you see in the 1961 edition. And to me, that is what cooking is all about.

"Julie and Julia" by Julie Powell

First of all, sorry about the formatting on that previous post. You can tell I just push buttons and hope it all works out! Now, I found this book on the $4.99 shelf at Borders and almost squealed out loud. I had been trying to request it from my library for ages, and either it was a user problem or they indeed did not carry it. Let me just start out by saying that I just love Julia Child, in every way. I've read books about her (I loved "My Life in France") and it will forever boggle my mind that until she moved to France at the age of 37, she didn't even know what a shallot was. And, at the stage in life when some people write off dreams and passions because it is too much trouble, Julia found hers and grabbed it with both hands. AND became the best in the business. Wow. Julia Child rocks.

I had heard about Julie Powell and her project to cook all of Julia's recipes in the "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook. But when I started reading the book, my first thought was "Huh! This could have been me! Why didn't I think of it? Why can't I have a book and a movie?" Indeed, a handful of years back, my husband complained about the lack of variety in my cooking. At first I got real pissed, then I decided to show him. For about a year, I never cooked the same dish twice (unless he asked nicely for a repeat). And while my goals were not as lofty has hers, I could really empathize with the turmoil that Julie experienced in completing her project...failed sauces, flour everywhere, dismembering bodies of animals that you would eventually eat, cussing, drinking, searching all over town for some elusive ingredient, you name it. This is a reality show on paper, and I had a ball reading it. I loved the vulgar language, the fits she threw, her eccentric friends, and her drive to see her project through to the last recipe. It seemed pretty real to me. At the end of the book, however, upon J.C.'s death, the tone of the books loses it manic humor and becomes reflective on why Julie took on such a wacky project and the impact that Julia Child had on her life. It was a nice way to wrap up the story.

The reviews on this book were extreme. Some loved the book and some thought it was full of narcissism and disrespect to one of the world's greatest chefs. I belong to former contingent. I am glad I was able to read the book before the movie comes out. (I have a hangup about seeing the movie first. It usually ruins it for me.) But with Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia, it has promise.