Christina and I will be bringing The Edible Book Club back in October when there is a chill in the air and we are ready to get tucked up in front of the fire with a good book and great conversation.

But that doesn’t mean to say you won’t be hearing from us. We will keep you posted with what we are currently reading and hope that you will do the same via the blog and on Twitter @ediblebookclub

Have a great summer everyone!

~Natalie and Christina

p.s you can keep up with our travel and food adventures and allotment escapades at Rowdy Chow Girl and Girl Gardening. 

97 Orchard promises to be a little different from the other books we’ve read.  It has been described as forensic gastronomy.  The book tells the story of five immigrant families of various ethnicities living in a New York tenement a the turn of the 20th century.  We’ll get to know them through their shopping, cooking, and eating habits, and their recipes.

Happy Reading! ~Christina & Natalie

Below is the April discussion schedule:

Find us on Twitter @ediblebookclub #ediblebooks

If you need more information about Edible Books, please read the participation guidelines here.

You can vote at the bottom of this post. Polls are open until Monday March 25th, then we’ll announce the winner!  Reading/discussion will start on April 1^st.

Look over the list, and then take a moment to vote so we can continue our conversation about books on Twitter at the #ediblebooks hashtag.

Our short list is based on price and availability.

The Nominations for April Are:

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle: Peter Mayle and his wife did what most of us only imagine doing when they made their long-cherished dream of a life abroad a reality: throwing caution to the wind, they bought a glorious two hundred year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron Valley and began a new life. In a year that begins with a marathon lunch and continues with a host of gastronomic delights, they also survive the unexpected and often hilarious curiosities of rural life. From mastering the local accent and enduring invasion by bumbling builders, to discovering the finer points of boules and goat-racing, all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life are conjured up in this enchanting portrait. (available in all formats in the US and UK)

97 Orchard: Is a richly detailed investigation of the lives and culinary habits—shopping, cooking, and eating—of five families of various ethnicities living at the turn of the twentieth century in one tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Anyone interested in the history of how immigrant food became American food; and “foodies” of every stripe. (available in paperback and hard cover in the US, hard cover with limited availability in the UK)

Take a moment to leave your nominations in comments here on the website, after this post.  Nominate as many books as you want to, then lobby as hard as you like, here or on twitter (don’t forget to use the #ediblebooks hashtag!).

Nominations are open from now until Tuesday, March 19th at midnight.  We’ll start voting on Thursday, March 21st, and the polls will stay open until Monday, March 25th.  We’ll announce the book, then the reading/discussion will start on April 1^st.

~Natalie & Christina

New to Edible Books?  Welcome to the club!  If you need more information about how Edible Books works, please read the participation guidelines here.

During our recent Q&A with Erica Bauermeister (author of our February book selection The School of Essential Ingredients) she listed Chocolat among her favorite food books, so in a way this book was her nomination.

And as one of our book club members noted, Chocolat is the “perfect Lenten read”.  Starting on Shrove Tuesday and ending with Easter Monday, we’ll follow the Lenten journey of the citizens of the village of Lansquenet, after chocolatier Vianne Rocher opens her shop and turns their quiet little town on its ear.

The book description promises that “every page offers a description of chocolate to melt in the mouths of chocoholics, francophiles, armchair gourmets, cookbook readers, and lovers of passion everywhere.”

Chocolat should spark some interesting discussion about temptation, indulgence, and the value of austerity.

Happy Reading! ~Christina & Natalie

Below is the March discussion schedule:

March 1^st-8^th:   Chapters 1-10

March 9^th-16^th: Chapters 11-20

March 17^th-23^st: Chapters 21-29

March 24^nd-31th: Chapters 30-39

Find us on Twitter @ediblebookclub #ediblebooks

If you need more information about Edible Books, please read the participation guidelines here.

But we did, and following the success of our conversation with Nicole Kelby – author of White Truffles in Winter, we are delighted to introduce Erica Bauermeister the author of our February book choice – The School of Essential Ingredients. We took a selection of the questions that you, the Edible Book Club members, sent to us via email and Twitter and put them to Erica. Here are her responses.

Edible Books:  Where did you learn about cooking to enable you to write about it so beautifully? Your descriptions of the food come across so well on the page that you can practically taste them.

Erica: We lived in Italy from 1997-1999.  Before that point, I was ambivalent about food.  I had grown up in a recipe-based household and cooking simply seemed like one more chance to do something right or wrong.  Italy was a revelation — cooking there was a conversation among ingredients.  My job as a cook was to listen and decide which ones went together.  It opened up a whole new world to me — and I think that more intuitive attitude translated over to my writing, as well.

EB: One thing I’m always curious about is where the seed of the idea that developed into the novel came from. Did the idea naturally expand into the book? Or was it changed into something totally different by the time it was done?

Erica: When we returned from Italy I took a cooking class because I missed being around people who loved food.  That first night we killed crabs with our bare hands.  It was an intimate and shocking experience (I don’t even kill spiders), and there we all were, doing this among strangers.  It seemed like such a strange situation and it made me wonder what would happen to a group of people if they stayed together for a period of time, doing that intimate activity of cooking.  What would happen to their relationships?  And what would be the food that would affect each one, take them to the next place they needed to go in their life, just the way killing the crabs did for me?  I like to say I was shocked into fiction – suddenly the structure for a novel just fell into my head: 8 students and their teacher in a cooking school that would last about 9 months.  And while the characters came slowly over time, and some of them changed, the structure never did.

EB:  Who taught you to cook?

Erica: I learned by watching Italians in their homes, and taking a class from an Italian matron.  She was great, and grumpy — she really didn’t want us to use recipes, but she had to write them down for the class so she did everything she could to subvert the process.  She wrote in complicated Italian, used grams instead of ounces or cups.  She basically forced us to experiment.

 EB: Did a person in your life inspire each character? 

Erica: No.  I never write fictional characters based on people I know – it doesn’t seem fair to the real people or the character.  And in the end, I can go so much farther with a character who is only themselves.  If they were based on someone I knew I might feel constrained by reality.

 EB: What is your favorite recipe from the book?

Erica: One of my favorite things in the world is cooking pasta sauces — that slow simmering, the way the smell travels through the house and greets people as they come home.  It just means family to me.  And btw — if you haven’t found them yet, there are recipes hidden on my website:

http://www.ericabauermeister.com/recipes

EB: What are a few of your favorite books?  Especially any food-themed books you have really enjoyed!

Erica: Yum.  Great question.  Here are some favorite food books, in no particular order…

• Chocolat — Joanne Harris (don’t confuse it with the movie.  The book is much, much better)
• Garlic and Sapphires — Ruth Reichl
• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake — Aimee Bender
• The Art of Eating — MFK Fisher
• The Natural History of the Senses — Diane Ackerman (ok, that’s not technically about food, but you sure will enjoy food and cooking more after you read that book!)

You can find a longer list of my favorite books here: 

http://www.ericabauermeister.com/favoritereads

Our thanks to Erica Bauermeister for taking the time to answer questions for our Edible Books community!  Her  new book, The Lost Art of Mixing, is a sequel to our February book, The School of Essential Ingredients.  

Now it’s your turn: you can vote at the bottom of this post. Polls are open until Monday February 25th, then we’ll announce the winner!  Reading/discussion will start on March 1^st.

Look over the list, and then take a moment to vote so we can continue our conversation about books on Twitter at the #ediblebooks hashtag.

Here are the book choices for March:

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton: Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future family—the result of a prickly marriage that nonetheless yields lasting dividends. By turns epic and intimate, Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. (available in paperback, hardback, Kindle edition and audio in the US and the UK)

Chocolat by Joanne Harris: In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows. Each box of luscious bonbons comes with a free gift: Vianne’s uncanny perception of its buyer’s private discontents and a clever, caring cure for them. Is she a witch? Soon the parish no longer cares, as it abandons itself to temptation, happiness, and a dramatic face-off between Easter solemnity and the pagan gaiety of a chocolate festival. Chocolat‘s every page offers a description of chocolate to melt in the mouths of chocoholics, francophiles, armchair gourmets, cookbook readers, and lovers of passion everywhere. It’s a must for anyone who craves an escapist read, and is a bewitching gift for any holiday. (available in hardback, paperback, Kindle edition and audio in the US, Kindle and paperback in the UK)

How To Pick A Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table by Russ Parsons: In How to Pick a Peach, Parsons takes on one of the hottest food topics today. Good cooking starts with the right ingredients, and nowhere is that more true than with produce. Should we refrigerate that peach? How do we cook that artichoke? And what are those different varieties of pears? Most of us aren’t sure. Parsons helps the cook sort through the produce in the market by illuminating the issues surrounding it, revealing intriguing facts about vegetables and fruits in individual profiles about them, and providing instructions on how to choose, store, and prepare these items. Whether explaining why basil, citrus, tomatoes, and potatoes should never be refrigerated, describing how Dutch farmers revolutionized the tomato business in America, exploring organic farming and its effect on flavor, or giving tips on how to recognize a ripe melon, How to Pick a Peach is Parsons at his peak. (available in paperback, hardback, and Kindle edition in the US, hardback and paperback only in the UK)

*

New to Edible Books?  Welcome to the club!  If you need more information about how Edible Books works, please read the participation guidelines here. 

When I was fifteen I had no conception of life-changing events. Life-changing was waking up with a zit. I had a ten-speed bike, Bee Gees posters, and my own room. What else do you need, right? When I wasn’t dealing with one teenage crisis or another, I was reading books. I’d bike to the local bookstore, Burrows, raid the $2 bargain bin and bike home balancing a stack of hardcovers under one arm. I knew nothing about any of the authors. I needed just a half-way enticing dust jacket and I was sold. I don’t remember reading 99.9% of these books but I’ve always remembered that I read Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer.

It’s the first book I remember reading that dealt with Egypt not as a history lesson but as a time and place where people lived. These particular people lived extraordinary lives full of Pharaoh Gods, harem masters, magicians, reincarnation, chariot battles, and sex. I hadn’t yet read anything adult about sex let alone Pharaoh gods-harem masters-magician-reincarnation-chariot battle-sex. To me, the whole book was beyond the realm of possible book material. My parents had no idea what I was reading at any given moment so I wasn’t confined to age-appropriate material or discouraged from exploring.

I continued to raid the bargain bin and I read lots of books written by and published for adults. Novels lead to biographies led to plays lead to literature led to history led to science and so on and so on. But it was years and years later that it dawned on me that my need to explore stories came from being 15 and having the freedom to just read and read and read in my own room under the watchful gaze of the Bee Gees.

Take a moment to leave your nominations in comments here on the website, after this post.  Nominate as many books as you want to, then lobby as hard as you like, here or on twitter (don’t forget to use the #ediblebooks hashtag!).

Nominations are open from now until Tuesday, February 19th at midnight.  We’ll start voting on Thursday the 21st, and the polls will stay open until Monday February 25th.  We’ll announce the book, then the reading/discussion will start on March 1^st.  February is a short month, so we’ll be reading our new book before you know it.

Looking forward to warmer weather, some great book suggestions, and even more great discussion!

~Natalie & Christina

New to Edible Books?  Welcome to the club!  If you need more information about how Edible Books works, please read the participation guidelines here.

Erica isn’t on Twitter, so we’ve worked out a creative plan with her to allow all of us to ask her a few questions.  Between now and Thursday February 14th, leave your questions in comments after this post.  Or Tweet your questions to us if they are less than 140 characters!

Have questions about the characters in this book?  The inspiration behind it?  The writing process?  Erica’s favorite authors? Get your questions to us, we’ll relay them to Erica, and she will answer some or all of them.  We will then post the compiled questions and answers here on the blog.

We know this opportunity to interact with the author will greatly enhance our book discussion and our experience as readers.  Our thanks to Erica Bauermeister—and to all of you, for the ongoing conversation!

~Christina & Natalie

Find us on Twitter @ediblebookclub #ediblebooks

If you need more information about Edible Books, please read the participation guidelines here.