A literary feast

MJ brought home a treasure from the library: Erica Bauermeister's utterly delicious debut novel, The School of Essential Ingredients. The flavors and scents and feelings and dreams contained in this book are beyond description, and yet Ms. Bauermeister describes every one, in poignant and lyrical fashion. I give it my strongest recommendation, accompanied by the suggestion that you not read too much about the story before you read the story itself.

Here is just one very small sample of the numerous passages—pick a page, any page!—that moved me:

Over the hours, the labor pains had sharpened... She kept thinking the waves would slow or break for a moment, but they didn't, one after another until there was nowhere left to go but in, to dive down and hope for air on the other side, but there was no air, no way out, just a desperate reaching and grasping until finally she felt something deep inside her—not physical, not emotional, simply her—break into pieces. And into the arms of that cracked-apart person that had been Claire, they placed a baby and a love came out of her, through the pieces, that she didn't even know was possible.

Warning: After reading this book, you will almost certainly be headed for the market in search of your own essential ingredients. Buon appetito!