What's cooking

   

    Here's a lovely light read, but not a candy floss one. You may recognise it by its alternative title and cover, but regardless of externals, Erica Bauermeister's The Monday Night Cooking School is a novel about food which has people at its heart.

    Food creates and evokes memories, joins us in shared experiences, and the links it creates can be more than just the savouring of a moment. Lillian knows this; she runs a restaurant which is warm and welcoming, the sort of place people are drawn to and want to linger in. On Monday evenings when the restaurant is closed, Lillian opens her kitchen to those who wish to learn to cook or increase their knowledge and appreciation of food. As her small class meets weekly so they get to know one another, work in close proximity and find they interact much like the play of flavours in a dish - they bring out in one another things which were long hidden, strengths hitherto undiscovered, qualities underused.

   Each chapter is in effect a short story about a member of the group - one pupil is the focus, both in the kitchen and in life around and before they donned their apron. As Lillian teaches them to slow down, observe and notice scents and tastes, so food provides the key to what for each one has been missing. The results are - as with the best recipes - more than just the sum of their parts.

   Sensuous, warm, uplifting, this is a charming novel, and one that should make the reader look a little more closely at how they cook and what they eat.

Comments

[Audrey]

Oh, I was almost hoping this was a sequel (the book was called The School of Essential Ingredients in the U.S.) On the other hand, part of me is glad it isn't another UK book to covet. I agree that this was a lovely light read...wouldn't it be wonderful to find a real cooking class like this one?

[Julie Fredericksen]

I, too, liked this book under its alternate title, "The School of Essential Ingredients". Maybe they changed the title because here in the U.S. there are way too many "________ Night Knitting Club" books.

I agree with you, Audrey. I am glad, too, that it is not another UK book to covet!