Book Review- The School of Essential Ingredients

Are you looking for a good book to read that is just a bit different?  The School of Essential Ingredients has a delightful main character, an interesting take on cooking and a look into the lives of a wide variety of cooking students.

Apples are one of my Favorite Basic Ingredients

When our book club picked this book to read for the monthly meeting, I was not sure if I would like it.  I enjoy a good mystery or historical fiction and this book did not fit into either of these molds.  However, it only took me one chapter to get hooked on this book.  The author has such an interesting way of writing that I instantly got involved in the book.

Lillian, the main character owns a restuarant and conducts a cooking school in the back rooms.  She has a very unique way of cooking that instantly got me interested.  She didn't use recipes but rather concentrated on the basic ingredients for each dish and explored with her students how to make the most of the ingredients.  Lillian surely was a true artist when it came to her cooking.  She had a way of making everything magical and made me want to get in my kitchen and experiment.

The book is set up with a chapter for each student of the cooking class.  As the dish for that evening is explored we also learn a little bit about each of the students and why they came to the class to start with.  Each student had their own story and they were a very diverse group.  Lillian not only had a way with the food but also with each of her students.  She seemed to bring out the best in people and helped them to explore the situations in their lives.

                                                             
I don't want to spoil the story line for you.  But I will tell you if you enjoy cooking and reading you must try this book.  I highly recommend it.

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Review of The Obituary Society by Jessica Randall

Sometimes light escape reading is just right when we aren't feeling up to tackling nonfiction or literary novels. Times of illness or convalescence call for lighter than normal reading. That is what I wanted after my cervical spine surgery.

Perhaps with flu season fast approaching, it would be good to have this book on hand -- just in case. Of course, it's also a fun read when you are perfectly healthy and just don't want to get involved in a book that you can't put down when you have commitments to keep. 

I was only in the hospital overnight and through lunch the next day. I did manage to start and finish one book on my Kindle before I went home: The Obituary Society by Jessica L. Randall. I was in a post-op drug and sleep-deprived haze when I read the book, but I remember enjoying it. 

It's set in Auburn, a small town in the Midwest, and the main character, Lila, inherits her grandfather's house there. She lives with her Aunt Ada while the house, which needs a lot of work, is being repaired. Strange things happen whenever she's working at the house, however, and it would seem that someone doesn't want her there. Some incidents are even a bit frightening.

There is a lot of humor in the book that revolves around the relationships of Aunt Ada's friends and associates in her church. Some of the ladies collect clippings of the obituaries of their friends and neighbors in scrapbooks and discuss them at meetings of their Obituary Society.

There is also mystery. Lila has been warned never to go near the pond at the back of her property, but she decides to explore it by herself anyway. What happened there almost killed her. It was a place most people avoided because it was considered dangerous.

One of the most humorous series of interactions provides a touch of romance. One of Ada's friends, Gladys, tries in very obvious ways to match Lila with her grandson, Max, whom Lila doesn't like much at all.

This book was just right for hospital reading. It had enough action in the plot to grab me and keep me interested in spite of my condition, and I needed the humor. I was satisfied with the ending that resolved the mysteries and put the right people together. Another thing of interest at the end is a collection of all the recipes mentioned in the book. Many of the chapters deal with church dinners and such and women who have special recipes they are known for.

If you're looking for some easy light reading, The Obituary Society is a winner. It would be ideal to have in front of you when you are waiting for slow websites to load or programs to update. I often have my kindle handy for such occasions when I can only read in spurts, with one eye on the computer so I can click at the right times.  Enjoy. 

The Obituary Society: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (An Obituary Society Novel Book 1)Check Price

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Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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