Currier and Ives escapism (Vermont, present-day): The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living is a feel-good recipe to lighten a year bombarded by darkness. Louise Miller, a real-life baker – a pastry chef – has whipped up some delicious, warm nostalgia pie.

Her treat arrives for the 2017 holiday season wrapped in its new Christmas-y paperback cover. The 2016 hardback design also harks back to old-fashioned memories.

Miller’s debut confection is set in a fictional town in rural Vermont – Guthrie. Yet its character, culture, traditions, and landscape feel as authentic as the name Guthrie – Woody, that is, the folk hero. Apropos as folk music (and contra-dancing accompanying it) thrive here. Stringed instruments are prominent – fiddle, banjo, dulcimer, guitar, mandolin.

Like so much in the novel, the author/baker mixes and blends fiction with real. Miller plays the banjo; Livvy, 32, her main character, does too, handed-down from the father who raised her, now deceased (her mother left them, she’s gone too). Martin, 40 – the romantic entanglement in the maple-sugary air – is a fiddle player; his endearing, ill dad, Henry, used to play too.) Henry’s the reason Martin has returned to Guthrie from Seattle, making him an outlier as his two older brothers (and their families) remained nearby. A close-knit crew – something Livvy never had. Martin’s absence, his non-conformism, keenly felt by his siblings, though their dear mother, aptly named Dolly, shows no outwardly signs of resentment. Though, in this small, gossipy New England town, villagers tend to hide their personal feelings.

Also flourishing in these parts, novelistically and realistically, are apple pie baking, fiercely competitive baking contests, and apple growing (apple pie, the State’s official pie); annual festivals; maple-syruping (Vermont our largest producer); cozy country inns; and romantic sleigh rides.

Miller invites us to come take a good look around. Here again, real life pipes in as you’ll want to do more than armchair traveling – drive here if you’re within striking distance. Livvy is, at least when we meet her. An unsettled soul, she’s moved around a bit, all big cities. Like Miller, she lives in Boston, about a three hour drive to Guthrie.

Head to the Maple Sugar Inn. To the homey kitchen, where you’ll find Livvy laboring away much of the time. Trained at the renowned Culinary Institute of America, baking is far more than a career for Livvy. A “labor of love,” it’s her creative outlet, what she excels at, and how she retreats and soothes herself. Miller paints a realistic, less glamorous picture of the incredibly long hours demanded of a professional chef. When the novel opens, this James Beard award-nominated chef flees to Guthrie to be rescued by her best friend Hannah who lives there (married to the town’s doctor), after a calamitous incident at a private club’s five-hundred-dollar-a-plate charity fundraiser Livvy was sous cheffing for. Hannah did save the day, introducing her to an innkeeper looking for a new dessert chef.

Meet Margaret, the inn’s proprietor, one tough-cookie. Her gradual softening to Livvy is a highlight – an unlikely bond until the story evolves. Margaret is prim and proper compared to Livvy who literally stands out.“Cute at best,” though we’re not so sure as she’s forever dyeing her hair – wild colors in the Manic Panic Electric lineup, many inspired by foods like banana, candied apples, cotton candy pink. The visual rendering exaggerates her bohemian nature, which fits with unconventional images we may have of Vermonters. A hardy, diverse bunch – old-timers and new – attracted to the State’s free-spiritedness, tranquil beauty, farm-to-table sustainable lifestyle.

Bring a wad of napkins for Livvy is serving mouth-watering desserts, from simple to fancy: apple pies (of course!), sugary-glazed cinnamon buns, white chocolate mousse, huckleberry clafouti, pumpkin crème brulee, buttermilk custard, sour cherry napolean, bavarian torte … Grab a couple of tissues too as there’s sadness and pathos in this novel of “longing and joy.”

Louise Miller writes with the same warmth as she bakes. (Take a look at her sweets on her foodie blog: https://louisethebaker.tumblr.com/.) Warmth that’s seen in Livvy who wears her emotions on her sleeve – a “pudding-soft heart” – and in the unexpected friendships she makes with inn staff and Martin’s loving family. They’ve been spared the kind of loneliness that “becomes a part of who you are,” Livvy tells us.

It’s the warmth of the prose about the meaning of Home that gives the novel so much heart. In an enlightening interview, the author offers insight into how she evokes those feelings and yearnings, which explains, I think, how she landed a two-book contract deal with a prestigious imprint. (Her second novel, The Late Bloomer’s Club, comes out Summer 2018. I can’t wait to read it after this charmer): Miller studied art so she thinks visually, envisions scenes before she writes them. Indeed, The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living is ripe for the movie screen.

Livvy has followed her mother’s prescription to “always do what you can to make life sweeter.” A culinary artist drawn to the “predictability” of baking versus the instability her life has been. Along with her vintage tastes in clothing and unusual living conditions (for much of the novel Livvy lives in the inn’s sugarhouse), there’s humor and quirkiness to her lively character in contrast to the quiet seriousness of Martin’s.

The novel is like comfort food, mixing and blending fine ingredients. This recipe starts with an appetizing opening line: “The night I lit the Emerson Club on fire had been perfect for making meringue.” Restless Livvy who can’t imagine country living finds peacefulness in the beautiful Green Mountain State. Miller describes the physical setting with clever prose using food metaphors, such as:

“The dark limbs of the apple trees were already trimmed in a thick coating of snow. Together they looked like layers of cake and frosting.”

Ingredients are added in order, month by month in an unnamed year, taking us from September’s colorful harvest season through the winter into June. In July, an epilogue is whipped up, running for another year, answering questions that keep us turning pages. Chiefly, what happens to Livvy and Martin? Both came to Guthrie temporarily. Music is the special ingredient that binds. When the flavor gets intense between Livvy and Martin cool it down with the inn’s avuncular chef, Al, twice Livvy’s age, who touches us in the way he genuinely cares about her. Whisk in a key ingredient that smooths it all throughout: Livvy’s sidekick, a big, lovable Irish Wolfhound named Salty.

“Vermont in June is like Oz,” Livvy says. Which makes The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living  feel fairy-tale like. It’s been a while since I read one with this much wistfulness. With America 2017 tasting oh-so-bitter, savor this sweet holiday gift.

Lorraine

3 thoughts on “The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living

  1. Reply Jackie Cangro Dec 9,2017 2:13 PM

    Your review made my mouth water, Lorraine! This novel sounds delightful and delicious. 🙂

    I recently finished Sourdough, by Robin Sloan, which features the bread of the same name. I dreamed about bread for days.

  2. Reply Lorraine Kleinwaks Dec 10,2017 11:37 AM

    Now all we need is the main course! Thanks for your SOURDOUGH suggestion, Jackie. Happy Holidays.

  3. Pingback: The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living – Elizabeth Reads

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