I recently read Erica Bauermeister’s The Monday Night Cooking School (the book is also published under the title The School of Essential Ingredients). It’s a charming book – essentially linked short stories about eight people who meet at a cooking class.

I’m not going to attempt a ‘traditional’ review of this book (at last count, 2,443 people on Goodreads have already done that). Instead, given that I read this book as part of the Foodies Reading Challenge, I thought that a list of the dishes described in the book was far more thrilling – without question, food is the star of the The Monday Night Cooking School. Some of these dishes are described in greater detail than others but all are important to the stories (especially plain, steamed rice for Ian, whose story I enjoyed the most).

Scrambled eggs
Mashed potato
Tamale
Guacamole
Magic coffee
Crab with buttery white wine and lemon sauce Continue reading →