The Ingredients of Us

By: Jennifer Gold

Narrated by: Carly Robins

From debut author Jennifer Gold comes a delicious novel about the sweet and sour ingredients of life and love.

Elle, an accomplished baker, has a recipe for every event in her life. But when she discovers her husband’s infidelity, she doesn’t know what to make of it. Jam, maybe? Definitely jam.

Fed up with the stale crumbs of her marriage, Elle revisits past recipes and the events that inspired them. A recipe for scones reminds her of her father’s death, cinnamon rolls signify the problematic courtship with her husband, and a batch of chocolate cookies casts Elle in a less-than-flattering light. Looking back, Elle soon realizes that some ingredients were missing all along.

After confronting her husband, Elle indulges her sweet tooth in other ways, including a rebound that just leaves her more confused. As secrets from the past collide with the conflicts of the present, Elle struggles to manage her bakery business and maintain the relationships most important to her. In piecing her life back together, will Elle learn to take the bitter with the sweet?

©2018 Jennifer Gold (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

Critic reviews

“The tension builds nicely…Readers will enjoy the heroine’s journey of self-discovery and the recipes for the lemon tarts, brownies, scones, chocolate Bundt cake, and other treats she bakes along the way.” --Kirkus Reviews

“The Ingredients of Us is a literary confection filled with multifaceted characters and a compelling story line. Gold’s bittersweet look at love will satisfy any contemporary women’s fiction reader’s sweet tooth.” --Booklist

“A delightful and delicious read, The Ingredients of Us delves into the fabric of marriage and what happens when some ingredients in the relationship are missing. Gold has crafted a smart storyline with memorable characters and mouth-watering recipes that are sure to appeal to fans of Jenny Colgan and Amy E. Reichert.” --Kerry Lonsdale, Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author

Re Relationship with baking

Her relationship was with her bakery and not so much with her husband. No wonder he left her. Not sure he should try again.

A delicious thought provoking read.

A thought provoking read about a married couple who are faced with the aftermath if infidelity. Elle is a baker married for 6 years to Tom. While searching Tom’s IPad for a photograph, Elle finds evidence of his affair. Confronted, Tom breaks off the affair - Elle does not believe her husband.
Sprinkled throughout the book are bonafide recipes which are meant to illustrate connections to people and/or times in the couples relationship.
Though Elle and Tom love each other it does not seem they can overcome the infidelity or his strong desire for a family.
Jennifer Gold has written flushed out characters - I would like to learn more about this couple.
The Audible performance was well done.

1 star

I really thought I'd love The Ingredients of Us by Jennifer Gold. I am a baker and love books about marriage and relationships. However, the first recipe tells readers to make lemon curd in a metal bowl, which any baker knows is not something to do as the acid reacts to the metal, which creates an off taste. There were issues with each recipe "Elle" wrote, which is annoying because it's obvious the author doesn't know as much about baking as they'd like readers to believe. I also could have done without the "[days/weeks/months] [before/after] Elle found out" at the beginning of each chapter. I usually love books that go back and forth in time, but it wasn't done well with this book.

I found the actual book uneventful. It is more about Elle trying to deal with her husband's affair introspectively. I don't need an all-out war between them, but there should be more than reminiscing about mundaneness of their 9-year relationship. To top it off, the ending made me actually mad and made the entire book feel like a gigantic waste of time.

Carly Robins is not a narrator I like. While she has a bit of range, I can't help but think that the monotony of her voice added to my view of it being boring.