Erica Bauermeister

Oh, how I love a story that has a story within a story ... this book takes it one step further to have an actual book within the book! And, this amazing book has not only a book within it, but so many stories ... and connections within stories to other stories. Erica Bauermeister has the uncanny ability to write characters in just one chapter that feel more fully fleshed out than you often find in full books. She describes people, emotions, and settings so brilliantly that you truly feel as show more if you know who you are reading about and you want to know the outcome of their story. This is one of the most unique books I've read and I wish that I could read it again for the first time ... and I just finished it! I also wish that I could read the book within the book, but it exists only in the snippets included and in the author's mind .... which is kind of the whole purpose of the book. Excellent. Absolutely excellent. show less

The Lost Art of Mixing returns us to Lillian's kitchen, which we first discovered in The School of Essential Ingredients, but things aren't going so terribly well. In the opening pages, Lillian discovers some news that will turn her life upside down. Lillian's accountant Al and his wife Louise are discovering maybe theirs is not quite a match made in heaven. Lillian's former student, current sous chef, Chloe thinks she might've found someone to love in the guise of the restaurant's new show more dishwasher, tall, silent Finnegan, but there's more to him than meets the eye. Not to mention, Chloe's aging roommate Isabelle is slowly losing her memories to Alzheimer's disease.

As Isabelle wisely observes of her friends, "They were like ingredients that had become chemically incapable of mixing with each other, or perhaps had simply forgotten how, when she knew it wasn't the case and didn't need to be." Isabelle's memory might be slipping, but fortunately, she still has a few tricks up her sleeve that could heal the rifts between the people she loves.

Unfortunately The Lost Art of Mixing didn't pack quite the same emotional punch for me as did The School of Essential Ingredients. I loved how, in School, Bauermeister drew Lillian as a wise lady whose instincts for which foods would re-awaken the spirits of her cooking school students. Not only was it an interesting concept, but it proved to be a great way to unite the several different stories Bauermeister was telling. In Mixing, Bauermeister spends more time on Lillian as a character in her own right, but also explores the lives of various other characters, which is interesting, but the story is not quite so naturally cohesive as when Lillian's cooking school was anchoring it.

That said, Bauermeister's magic is still there. Like Lillian, Bauermeister has a keen instinct when it comes to people and the experiences that shape their lives, and in her writing, she does a fantastic job of drawing out the pasts that have damaged her characters and the things that each of them need to move forward. She also has a keen eye for the seemingly small things that can renew the human spirit - how physical labor can serve as a cleanser for the soul, how a listening ear and a cup of tea can be all it takes to set a person on a new path, and how a simple object can hold a wealth of memories. Readers will fall in love with this set of characters just as easily as the ones that graced the pages of School, and the glow of Bauermeister's beautifully intuitive prose is sure to win her more fans. show less

This book is quite a bit out of my wheelhouse, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I sometimes like to stretch my preferred genre list a bit just to have a chance to think about something a bit different This book is that. We meet young Emmeline in the beginning of the book at age 6. She is living on a remote island (we're never sure where this island is located, but it's in the north apparently) with her papa. They are all alone, and they subsist mostly on what they can gather off the island and show more from the sea. Emmeline has a magical life with her enigmatic father. Her life is full of nature and wonderful scents that are preserved on papers in glass bottles. The two of them explore the world with these numerous scents. Then trouble comes to this magical island in the form of a large bear that tears their little world apart. Emmeline watches her father change before her eyes until he is a ghost of his former self. By this time Emmeline is twelve, and when her father dies, she is left alone on the remote island. A kind fisherman by the name of Henry saves her and brings her to civilization where she meets people for the first time. Between Henry and his wife Collette and their big old dog Dodge, they manage to save this little girl. Emmeline has trouble adjusting to civilization, but she meets a friend by the name of Fisher and the two misfits become best friends. Eventually Emmeline sets out on a quest to find her lost mother, and what she sees in the big wide world of the city forever changes her. At the end of the book Emmeline is 19 years old, and she has found her roots and her purpose finally. I was a little disappointed with the way the book ended because really nothing was explained as to how Emmeline would go on, and I wanted to see more of Henry and Collette who waited for Emmeline to find herself for over a year. The whole story is held together with the glue of scents. No other sense brings back more memories to humankind than smells. I have to admit that I didn't really care for Emmeline, but when I thought about it, I think there is no other way she could have been. The anger and impulsiveness were instilled in her from a young age, and she was never taught any filters for dealing with rude and untrustworthy people. Perhaps this is one of the big skills that we as parents need to teach our children. The world is a scary place and insulatingour children from life's bumps and bruises does not teach them life skills. This was an excellent book with lots of thoughts to ponder at the end of the story. show less

A story of scents and how a tell your life?s story. A beautiful story of finding oneself in the scents that surround us through our life. Kirkus: Ayoung girl with a unique talent for identifying scents embarks on a journey of self-discovery when she's ripped from her intensely isolated childhood home.Emmeline has lived with her father on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest for as long as she can remember. Her father teaches her to read, to forage for food, and to hone show more her sense of smell. Emmeline doesn?t question their isolation, as she?s known nothing else. She adores the long days learning from her father, listening to fairy tales, and watching him use his mysterious machine. The machine produces ?scent-papers? that her father stashes inside small glass bottles, each paper preserving a one-of-a-kind scent. When tragedy strikes, Emmeline is forced to relocate to the mainland. She is taken in by a kind, childless couple in a seaside village. Similar to a wild animal suddenly brought into captivity, 12-year-old Emmeline struggles to adapt. As she slowly establishes a new life, beginning school and navigating adolescence, questions about her father, her absentee mother, and her own identity continue to grow. The more she learns about her past, the harder it becomes to reconcile her childhood with her future. Told entirely from Emmeline?s perspective, the novel contains three distinct sections. The first, where Emmeline is living in the wild, is suffused with wonder and enchantment. The author deftly describes the lush island and the awe of a little girl watching her father fill a cabin with mysterious bottles full of scents and dreams. Once Emmeline moves to the mainland, the patina of her youth wears off, and much of the magic of the story goes with it. Even so, the author?s ability to describe scents, the nature in which they evolve, and how deeply they are tied to memory and emotion provides sufficient heft to keep the novel engaging and worthwhile. Told in a lyrical, haunting prose, the story provides fascinating information about the ways in which different fragrances can impact human behavior and the struggles of finding one?s own identity.An artfully crafted coming-of-age story that will take the reader on an exquisite olfactory adventure. show less