Introduction

A "heartbreakingly delicious" national bestseller about a chef, her students, and the evocative lessons that food teaches about life

Once a month, eight students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect...

The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian's soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. And soon they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create.

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Discussion Questions

1) When Claire first walks into Lillian's cooking class, she reflects: “When was the last time she had been someplace where nobody knew who she was?” Is the anonymity of the kitchen a lure for Lillian's students? Does Lillian-or the author-encourage or discourage the notion of the restaurant being a place apart from the everyday world?

2) How did you respond to the story of Lillian's upbringing? Would she have been better off with a more traditional home life? Do you agree with Abuelita's statement that “sometimes our greatest gifts grow from what we're not given?”

3) Besides scenes from Lillian's childhood, the author discloses very little about Lillian. Why do you think the author did this? How would the book be different if we knew more about Lillian's day-to-day life?

4) Each of the character's stories centers on a dish or ingredient which has a profound affect upon how they see themselves or the world. What connections do you see between Claire and the crabs? Between Chloe and tortillas? Tom and the pasta sauce?

5) As a general rule, Lillian doesn't give her students recipes. Why do you think she does this? What are the pros and cons of this approach to cooking?

6) Did Helen do the right thing by telling Carl about her affair? Or do you agree with Carl when he “found himself wishing that she, who could keep a Christmas secret from their children for months, could have kept this one for herself.” How would their marriage - and Carl and Helen themselves - have evolved had he never learned the truth?

7) Lillian tells the class that “A holiday is a lot like a kitchen. What's important is what comes out of it.” In what way do the kitchens in this book - Lillian's childhood kitchen, the greasy spoon where Tom meets Charlie, the kitchen that Antonia saves from demotion - represent different celebrations of life? Is there a kitchen in your life that you associate with a particular celebration or emotional milestone?

8) Isaac says to Isabelle that he thinks "we are each a ladder and a chair for the other." What do you think he means? Are there people in your life who are or have been that for you?

9) At the end of the novel, Lillian reflects: “She saw how connected [the students] lives had become and would remain. Where did a teacher fit in the picture, she wondered, when there was no longer a class?” What do you think happens to Lillian once her class is disbanded? Do you feel each character's story is resolved? What do you imagine happens in these characters' lives after the book ends?

10) What would be your essential ingredients?

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