The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

A two layer yellow cake stuffed with fresh slices of strawberries and covered in rich, chocolate frosting for my birthday.

Whole grain ciabatta stuffed with pears, arugula, honey, brie, and black pepper for movie day with my mom.

Creamy polenta topped with sausage, peppers, and onions in a garlicky tomato sauce for Sunday dinner.

Enough spinach and ricotta raviolis to feed an army, handmade in my grandfather’s basement.

Martha Stewart’s recipe for the “World’s Best Mac and Cheese” (which is not an exaggeration) alongside Bubba burgers served poolside in the summer.

The perfect cappuccino and warm, buttery croissants made by the front desk clerk at our hotel on Lake Garda in Italy.

Juicy, spicy pico de gallo oozing out of fresh corn tortillas packed with grilled chicken and avocado on the beach in Cabo San Lucas.

The freshest, flakiest fish atop a bed of risotto while looking out at the pristine ocean during our honeymoon in Hawaii. Also in Hawaii, the best tasting barbecue pulled pork and a heavenly banana-mango-rum mixed drink.

Our three-tiered wedding cake covered in buttercream, and inside, devil’s food cake loaded with cookies and cream frosting.

And, possibly my most favorite dish of all, bone-in chicken breast seasoned with my husband’s secrets and crisped in a stock pot before adding in rice and broth; all cooked together to form the tastiest, heartiest meal I’ve ever had in my life; so simply executed but so complex in flavor. Now it’s a staple on my birthday or on our anniversary or even on Valentine’s Day.

I could go on forever.

I grew up in a household that loved food, savored food, and used food as a way to bring everyone together and tell them how much they mean to you.

I’m trying to carry that tradition over into my own family since Brian and I moved in together in 2009.

There is something about food that helps recall our best and worst moments in life; helping us to celebrate or heal. There is something about cooking that brings everyone in to the kitchen and makes time together feel closer and fonder. Cooking relaxes us and challenges us. It makes us proud or humbles us. There is so much to learn about life through cooking and eating.

That’s exactly how Lillian feels, and that’s exactly how she teaches others to cook in her Monday night classes at her namesake restaurant.

The School of Essential Ingredients starts out retelling Lillian’s own history, weaving together a story about a child growing up in usual circumstances and using food as a means to rise above it.

Lillian learns to cook because her mother cannot, or at least does not. Her mother would rather spend time reading then putting together a meal. To her, food is just something you eat to stay alive. But, Lillian cannot survive on toast and tea alone, so she decides to learn how to cook.

She also hopes to put together something so good, it will shake her mother from her book coma and rejoin Lillian in the real world.

I particularly enjoyed the section of the book where Lillian describes making dishes to match whatever book her mother was reading at the time, like making mashed potatoes while her mother read Henry James, sometimes aloud.

Pairing books and food is not a novel idea, but it was entertaining to watch the combinations come together. As someone who aligns some of her favorite memories with her favorite dishes, I found myself engrossed by this idea.

When the book and food combinations do not shake Lillian’s mother, she has to try something else. Luckily for Lillian, the woman in the market where Lillian gets her ingredients decides to help.

This part of the book, along with so many others, left me drooling. Here, Bauermeister takes her time walking us through the ingredients and steps of Abuelita’s Mexican hot chocolate. I actually paused at this point and wandered into the kitchen to make my own. (Although, I was missing some of the “essential” ingredients so while it was good, I am sure it was no match for the real thing.)

Finally, after one sip of this powerful elixir, Lillian’s mother is launched back into reality and really sees her daughter for the first time in years.

The hot chocolate helped Lillian overcome this adversity in her life. It also helped her see how food can break us out of our funks and launch us back in time to a place of bliss. She takes this lesson with her as she grows older and eventually opens her own restaurant. It’s also a great lesson she will impart to her students in her cooking classes.

As the novel moves on, we get to meet Lillian’s latest batch of students one by one, or truly, chapter by chapter. We get to see each person’s life as it is at the start of the class and as it is when the class ends.

We learn of the major defining pieces of each person’s life, like Claire’s children, Carl and Helen’s marriage that triumphed despite an affair, Antonia’s Italian heritage, Tom’s wife lost to breast cancer, Chloe’s almost crippling insecurities, Isabelle’s fading memory, and Ian’s relationship with his mother.

While all of these characters seem to have moved on from these things, there is something still lingering there deep down inside that only cooking and eating can draw out and heal.

For Claire it’s being able to leave the house and spend time around adults. It’s about finding herself again and learning how to reconnect to her husband using food. It’s about not scarfing down left over chicken fingers but sitting down and enjoying herself. It’s about allowing herself to have other things in her life besides her children.

For Carl and Helen it’s about celebrating their love. Every relationship requires work be put into it and attend to be paid it, and when that doesn’t happen for Helen, she has an affair. But they battle through it and in mending their relationship over the years learn that doing things together, learning new things together can make them closer and stronger.

For Antonia it’s trying to find friends and understanding in America after spending nearly all of her life in small town in Italy. It’s about learning what America has to offer other than fast food and nights spent alone missing home. It’s about finding a new identity in America that lets her hold onto her old self while also building a new self.

For Tom it’s about getting back in the kitchen after his wife, a magnificent professional chef in her own rite, passed away from cancer. His heartbreak stops him from cooking or even wanting to think about the food he ate with his wife while she was still alive. He is angry at the world for taking her away so he punishes the one thing she loved as much as him, food.

For Chloe it’s about finding her true self. She never felt like she fit in anywhere she worked and she never believed she was good enough to do more than bus tables. She also doesn’t have to courage to leave an emotionally abusive boyfriend. But her successes with Lillian show her that she is worthy and talented and can make it on her own.

For Isabelle the cooking lessons may be a way for her to try to hold onto her memories — both literally and figuratively. We often hear that the antidote to becoming forgetful is to do puzzles or learn new things. But here cooking has a dual purpose — not only can the lessons keep Isabelle’s mind functioning, it can help her recall her fondest moments in life, lost to her otherwise.

Lastly, for Ian the cooking classes are an irony because they were a gift from his mother, who never cooked herself. She was so absorbed in painting that to her, like Lillian’s mother, food was just something one needed to get by. Ian spends his life trying to get her attention, while also working very hard to not become like her. Thus, he works hard to excel in cooking to show he is more than his work.

What’s clever about this novel is that Lillian seems to know all of this without actually being told about most of it. She is like an oracle in a chef’s hat.

She knows exactly which tasks and ingredients will force her students to look at themselves and their challenges and grow. She supplies them not just with the tools to craft wonderfully described recipes that will leaving you itching for a good meal, but she also gives them the tools to take control of their lives and live it on their own terms.

It’s no surprise then to see each student flourish both in and out of the kitchen throughout the story with Lillian’s guidance.

By the end, life skills have been strengthened, as have bonds of friendship, using the essential ingredients supplied by Lillian. It’s perfectly fitting that the book closes on the last class which is really a meal to celebrate spring — the season of renewal.

Not only have her students come to appreciate her influence on their lives, Lillian too feels a special fondness for this particular group. Because this time it wasn’t just her special knowledge that affected the class, they affected each other too. They made points to spend time together outside of class, both platonically and in one case, romantically.

Lillian’s kitchen helped them become their own little family in a way. A family in which memories were bright and fresh and hearts were full and healed.

They became better versions of themselves that they could carry back out into the world. The most important lesson being that you can master any trial with the right instruments and a little help if you’re willing to just give it a try.