The School of Essential Ingredients

A "heartbreakingly delicious" national bestseller about a chef, her students, and the evocative lessons that food teaches about life - Once a month, eight students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect . . . The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian's soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Soon they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create.

Erica Bauermeister's love of slow food and slow life was instilled by her two years living in northern Italy with her family. She has taught literature and writing at the University of Washington. This is her first novel.