Kathleen Flinn

When Kathleen Flinn is fired from her corporate management job in London, she greets the news with relief and some trepidation. "What now?" she wonders. When she asks her soon-to-be husband Mike that question, without missing a beat, he reminds her of her dream to study cooking at the famous French cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu. She hardly considers that it would be possible for her to pursue the dream she'd cultivated throughout her life, but pops by Le Cordon Bleu's website just the same show more - just looking, of course. Soon, with Mike's promise that he will join her in Paris, Kathleen has donned the uniform of a Le Cordon Bleu student and is studying among an ethnic melting pot of would-be chefs.

In The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, Flinn goes on to chronicle the time she spent in Paris pursuing her long-neglected dream. Her descriptions capture the rich atmosphere and cultural quirks of Paris. Each of the famous and demanding chefs that serve as her class's teachers are brought vividly to life, including the terrifying Gray Chef who is infamous for making students, including Kathleen, cry with his angry critiques of poorly prepared cuisine - yet, who also succeeds in making his students into stronger, more capable chefs. Each chapter ends with a recipe, which might be of interest to those more interested in the food aspect of things, but I usually skipped over in my rush to get to the next chapter. Flinn also attempts to draw life lessons out of her experiences in the kitchen which fail and succeed in equal measure with some flowing easily into natural conclusions and others seeming to be forced just for the sake of including a life lesson.

With its detailed descriptions of chopping, filleting, and boning, the food talk tended to get a little boring, but that could be chalked up to my own lack of interest in such things. Flinn's amusing and revealing stories of Le Cordon Bleu, its students, and life in Paris more than make up for any lulls while she sautes and kneads her way to a Le Cordon Bleu degree. The bittersweet portion about her graduation beautifully captures the difficult contrast between achieving a goal and knowing that doing so will end one of life's better chapters. All in all, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is a delicious read about a woman who dared to follow her dream and lives up to its promise of "love, laughter, and tears." show less

I loved reading about Kathleen Flinn‘s teaching adventures in The Kitchen Counter Cooking School. I can’t recommend it highly enough for those who want, very simply, to master their kitchen domain. Flinn had the idea to start the “school” after she sneakily followed a mother and daughter around the supermarket pondering their choices, which all seemed to be heavily processed and straight out of the box. These days food and related choices are sensitive issues – that Flinn had the show more nerve to approach a total stranger to inquire about her purchasing decisions is amazing, that the woman confessed her concerns regarding preparing meals from fresh food is even more so. Flinn, wondering if others felt similarly, and if she could help, decided to find participants with cooking fears, looked into their habits - seeing how they are eating and what they are making- and then created a class to address common fears and issues.

Flinn found women who were less than confident in their cooking skills and spent time with them, going over what was in the cupboards and having them prepare a meal in front of her. This part of the book was interesting but became tedious because of the amount of women she had to visit. It was hard to distinguish between them after awhile, and I appreciated it a lot more when she related their situations later on in the lessons. It became apparent that many have similar collections of food in our refrigerators and cabinets. The real meat of the book is when Flinn and her co-chefs teach the women the basics of cutting up meat and vegetables, using a knife, preparing fresh salad dressings and marinades, and clearing ingredients in the fridge to make meals and stocks. Her tips and tricks gave the women confidence to make fast and healthy meals for themselves (perceptions of lack time and confidence in ability seem to be the reason that most opt for processed over fresh meals).

I already feel comfortable cooking, but I was happy to be shown a few new and simple dishes, and was grateful for the reminder that it can be really easy and quick to make healthful dishes- without a great expenditure of time, and without breaking the bank. I also like that Flinn takes the time to “debunk” some kitchen terms like braising and deglazing, etc. I saw cooking terms that I realize I perform all the time. I just don’t think of them as anything quite so fancy.

Since picking up The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, I have ventured back into making stocks and homemade soups, and have reacquainted myself with the omelette, a toasty piece of bread and a nice glass of wine as a delicious and easy meal. This is a great book for those who need to boost their kitchen self-esteem or those who are comfortable in the kitchen, but in need of a reminder of the basics. Flinn writes with an immediacy and warmth that is accessible and inviting to readers. I really enjoyed her voice and reading her stories, as will the fledgling chef in your life. Highly Recommended. show less

My dear, dear book club read Kathleen Flinn’s The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. It’s her memoir of returning from vacation to find out her position had been eliminated. So what did she do? She took her savings and went to Le Cordon Bleu Paris’ cooking school. She did all three levels of cuisine (basic, intermediate, and advanced), and found love along the way.

Sharper Your Knife is absolutely delightful. Flinn’s journalist background serves her well; the plot is tight, she show more spends just the right amount of time on each topic, and she doesn’t turn into a whiny meltdown (like I might have in similar scenarios) when her dishes are criticized (lambasted?), the Grey Chef goes crazy, or Margot hides the extra fish. No indeed, she fights right back – in the best way. Read it and find out the specifics. 😉 show less

Summary: Kathleen Flinn had graduated from one of the most prestigious culinary schools in the world, but she still wasn't sure what she wanted to do with herself, until the afternoon that she started spying on other people's shopping carts, and found a woman who was filling her cart with boxed or processed frozen meals, while the ingredients needed to make identical meals were readily available, substantially healthier, and cost less per serving. And then Flinn realized that this woman was show more a representative of a much larger segment of the population: those who would like to cook for themselves and their families, but lack the know-how - and more importantly, the confidence - to do so. Or as one of her participants put it, "I've watched Gordon Ramsay while eating Tuna Helper." So she organized a pilot program, where nine women would let her into their homes, into their kitchen, and learn that cooking doesn't have to be something to be afraid of. She covers knife skills, tasting, pastas, chicken, meat, salads and eggs, leftovers, fish, soups, and cake, including lots of practical kitchen tips and recipes, all while trying to convince her participants - and her readers - that cooking real food, from real ingredients, is something that everyone can do, not just the people on TV.

Review: This book was great, right in my wheelhouse. It didn't make as much of an impact on my life as it might have had I read it a few years ago - while recently I've been cooking from scratch with real ingredients much more than I ever have before, and I love it, I spent most of my time in grad school and eating pretty terribly - lots of frozen meals for lunch and frozen pizzas or pasta with jarred sauce for dinner. After grad school, I was still eating a fair amount of frozen meals, but I also started getting more adventurous in the kitchen, taking on things that scared me - eggplants, bread, whole chickens. (Facilitated by the fact that at that time I was living alone - if something went terribly wrong, as they did occasionally, no one but me would have to know. I think that's actually a bigger factor than Flinn recognizes; many of the women in her study were responsible for feeding husbands and/or children, so if they were going to try cooking something, it had to work the first time.)

Now fast-forward to last year, when I read Cooked by Michael Pollan. It is very, very similar in its main ideas, although not necessarily in its approach, to The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: namely, that most Americans eat a crazy amount of processed food, that cooking has been deified to something that normal people can't achieve, but that it's healthy, cheaper, and ultimately more satisfying. That book pretty effectively lit a fire under my butt when it came to getting me into my own kitchen, so there were times that The Kitchen Counter Cooking School was treading familiar ground. But Flinn's writing is really lively, and because her book features a variety of real people confronting real problems, it makes it more applicable and more accessible. (One of the biggest problems I had with Cooked is that occasionally Pollan didn't seem to realize that not everyone works from home and has the time to do a five-hour braise on a weeknight.) Flinn's more laid-back, with some straightforward recipes, lots of practical tips, suggestions for flavor combinations, and an attitude that doesn't expect perfection - essentially, if you are thinking more about what you're eating, and cooking more of it for yourself, it's okay if you occasionally reach for a nostalgic Oreo every now and again.

So while this book wasn't exactly a transformative experience for me, it did re-motivate me to cook more (and more things), and my bookmark is full of little scrawled reminders to myself like "what type of steel are my knives? Get sharpened!" and "start sourdough culture - who can I get some from?". And on top of that, it was an engaging and quick read, and kept me entertained through a day of air travel - although it also made me hungry, so I am now totally guilty of eating terrible hyper-processed airplane snacks while reading about cooking classes. Ah well. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: More than anything, this book made me want to take cooking classes… but I think that if you're interested in cooking, but find yourself not doing it particularly often (or particularly confidently or well), this book would be a great read. show less