Home/Nonfiction/The Kitchen Counter Cooking School
Loading...
The Kitchen Counter Cooking School cover

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks

4.1 (5,314 ratings)
29 minutes read | Text | 9 key ideas
Grocery aisles become the stage for a culinary awakening in Kathleen Flinn's "The Kitchen Counter Cooking School." After a transformative stint at Le Cordon Bleu, Flinn finds herself witnessing a food faux pas: a shopper's cart brimming with processed picks. Driven by a chef's intuition, she guides strangers toward fresh flavors and simple recipes, igniting a passion for real cooking. This book is more than a kitchen manual; it’s a manifesto for anyone yearning to conquer culinary fears and embrace mindful eating. Flinn arms nine novices with skills to wield knives, roast chicken, and craft crusty bread, transforming the mundane act of cooking into an artful, empowering experience.

Categories

Nonfiction, Memoir, Food, Audiobook, Cookbooks, Cooking, Book Club, Food Writing, Foodie, Food and Drink

Content Type

Book

Binding

Hardcover

Year

2011

Publisher

Viking Adult

Language

English

ASIN

0670023000

ISBN

0670023000

ISBN13

9780670023004

File Download

PDF | EPUB

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School Plot Summary

Introduction

A single encounter at a grocery store changed the trajectory of Kathleen Flinn's life. While observing a woman filling her cart with processed food boxes, Flinn - a culinary school graduate - made a spontaneous decision to help this stranger learn how to cut up a whole chicken. The woman had been buying only boneless, skinless breasts because she didn't know what to do with the other parts. When Flinn demonstrated how much money could be saved by purchasing a whole bird, the woman was amazed. "Get out! So I pay twice the price to buy it as separate pieces? Well, who knew that!" That impromptu lesson sparked an idea: what if cooking lessons could transform people's relationship with food? Flinn recruited nine volunteers - all self-described kitchen novices who relied heavily on processed foods - and created a series of fundamental cooking classes. Through knife skills, taste education, and basic techniques, she set out to prove that anyone could become a confident home cook. The journey wasn't just about teaching recipes; it was about helping people overcome kitchen anxiety, understand flavor, and ultimately gain control over their nutrition, their budgets, and their very relationship with food. As Flinn would discover, the most powerful ingredients for transformation weren't fancy techniques or expensive equipment, but rather confidence, curiosity, and the courage to try something new.

Chapter 1: The Woman with the Chicken: An Unexpected Encounter

The encounter that sparked it all began with a simple act of grocery store voyeurism. Flinn spotted a shopping cart filled with processed food boxes - pasta mixes, casserole starters, and pre-packaged meals - abandoned in the middle of an aisle. When the cart's owner returned, Flinn couldn't resist asking why she bought chicken breasts when whole chickens were on sale. "Thanks, but I would have no idea what to do with a whole chicken," the woman replied with a chuckle. Something about this admission compelled Flinn to action. She guided the reluctant stranger to the store's butcher counter, where they received an impromptu lesson in chicken sectioning. As the butcher demonstrated how to cut up the bird, the woman's attitude shifted from skepticism to fascination. When she learned that a whole chicken cost half as much as buying the parts separately, her eyes widened with surprise. This practical knowledge had immediate impact. The woman began removing boxed foods from her cart, replacing them with ingredients for real meals. Flinn walked her through the store for an hour, making notes in the margins of a cookbook she ended up purchasing for her. "You know, I can't thank you enough for all this," the woman said earnestly as they parted ways. "At first, I thought you were some crazy person. But this feels like Wonder Woman stopping to help fix a flat tire." The experience left Flinn wondering about a deeper issue. This woman wasn't unintelligent - she simply lacked basic cooking knowledge that previous generations took for granted. Without those skills, she was dependent on food manufacturers whose interests were primarily financial. The encounter revealed a troubling paradox: in an age of celebrity chefs and cooking shows, many Americans had become mere spectators to cooking rather than participants. They watched the Food Network while eating takeout or microwaved meals. Cooking had become entertainment, not an essential life skill. This revelation led Flinn to a bold experiment. She would find volunteers who, like the woman in the store, relied heavily on processed foods and fast food. She would audit their kitchens, teach them fundamental cooking skills, and see if these lessons could transform their eating habits. The volunteers she eventually selected were diverse in age and background, but shared a common trait: kitchen anxiety. They described themselves as "poor cooks" who lacked confidence. Many admitted to throwing away produce because they didn't know what to do with it, or buying expensive pre-cut ingredients out of fear of knife skills. What began as a simple grocery store encounter evolved into a project exploring deeper questions about America's relationship with food. Why had basic cooking skills been lost between generations? How had food marketing convinced people that making simple dishes like pasta sauce was beyond their abilities? And most importantly, could these skills be reclaimed through straightforward education? Flinn was about to find out that teaching someone to cut up a chicken could do more than save money - it could transform their entire relationship with food, cooking, and themselves.

Chapter 2: Knife Skills: The Foundation of Cooking Confidence

For the first cooking class, the volunteers arrived at the commercial kitchen with visible nervousness. Flinn handed each person an apron and, curiously, a cloth diaper. "They make the best side towels," she explained. "The middle is padded, so it's like an oven mitt." Each volunteer had brought their own knives from home - a revealing collection. Sabra had purchased a serrated-knife block set because "they looked cool." Trish had expensive Cutco knives but admitted she only used a blunt vegetable knife for all tasks. Donna displayed wedding-gift knives still in their protective covers. Before teaching cutting techniques, Flinn focused on the knife itself. "Show me your favorite knife, the one you use most of the time," she instructed. Most held up vegetable or paring knives. Only one person raised a chef's knife. When asked why, Trish confessed, "That kind of knife scares me. It's so big." Flinn explained that knife selection was personal - weight, balance, and how it feels in your hand matters more than brand or price. She demonstrated proper knife grip: "Don't strangle your knife. You want to sort of shake hands with it. Place the handle across your palm, wrap your hand around it, and with your thumb and index finger, pinch the juncture where the blade meets the handle." With a mountain of zucchini awaiting practice, Flinn taught the fundamental concept of sticks and cubes. "That's about it," she said after demonstrating how to dice. "When scientists say a food is diced, they mean it's in cubes. When they say julienne, they mean it's in sticks." The room fell silent as everyone concentrated on their cutting boards. After initial awkwardness, rhythmic chopping filled the space. Onions came next, with Flinn demonstrating how to cut them efficiently while minimizing tears. "If you cut it correctly, you should see le cœur d'un oignon, or the heart of the onion," she explained, showing how to keep the root intact while dicing. The transformation was remarkable. Sabra, who initially held her knife with neon-green fingernails curled tightly around the handle, exclaimed, "I'm actually good with a knife! Who knew? This is sooo cool." Even Donna, whose husband mocked her kitchen skills, successfully dissected an onion and celebrated with a spontaneous victory cheer. Trish, who admitted to cutting herself badly as a child and harboring knife fear ever since, gradually gained confidence with each slice. By the end of class, the mountain of vegetables had disappeared, transformed into a rustic Italian zucchini pasta sauce that everyone took home. This first lesson revealed something profound: knife skills weren't just about efficient food preparation - they were the foundation of cooking confidence. Many of the volunteers had avoided cooking because chopping seemed intimidating or time-consuming. Once they mastered basic knife techniques, the psychological barrier began to crumble. As Shannon observed, watching cooking shows had become a substitute for actual cooking: "I watch Wimbledon but it has no relationship to my ability as a tennis player. It's beautiful and aesthetic, but practice is the only thing that is going to help my backhand." For these aspiring cooks, knife skills weren't merely technical - they represented the crucial first step from spectator to participant in their own kitchens.

Chapter 3: The Power of Taste: Learning to Trust Your Palate

"This tastes weird, like a chemical," Jodi said, rolling her tongue around her mouth. The rest of the students nodded in agreement. The subject? Ordinary iodized table salt. This reaction came during a class focused on comparative tastings - a pivotal lesson that would transform how the volunteers approached cooking. Shannon had previously expressed confusion about recipes that instructed to "season to taste" - "What does that mean? Whose taste? How do I know what tastes right?" Trish similarly found the phrase "check seasonings" daunting: "Check for what? I don't know what I'm trying to make it taste like." To address this uncertainty, Flinn designed an extensive tasting session. The kitchen countertops were covered with small plates labeled with letters or numbers, containing samples of olive oils, chicken stocks, salts, canned tomatoes, and Parmesan cheeses. At first, participants were tentative, making uncertain notes and whispering things like "I don't know if this is right" or "I don't know what I'm supposed to taste." Gradually, they grew bolder. Using a wine "aroma wheel" to help articulate their perceptions, their vocabulary expanded. "That stock was kind of yeasty, don't you think?" "I found those tomatoes astringent." The salt tasting proved particularly revelatory. The universally disliked sample labeled "E" turned out to be ordinary iodized table salt - the very type most participants had in their own kitchens. "Oh, that stuff is awful," Shannon exclaimed. "I am not using that anymore. I had no idea that salts could taste so different." Another despised sample, described as tasting "like a car battery," was salt substitute. In the canned tomato category, premium San Marzano tomatoes surprisingly lost to more affordable brands that the group described as "actually tasting like tomatoes." The most dramatic moment came with the chicken stock comparison. After tasting eight varieties, the participants were shocked by the differences. "I always just thought chicken stock was chicken stock," Shannon said. "There's so much difference, it's amazing." Some were described as "salt licks" while others weren't "chicken-y" enough. The homemade stock initially received mixed reviews until Flinn added salt - revealing how commercial products often rely on sodium to create flavor. For Parmesan cheese, the authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano easily outshone the pre-grated canned variety that Sabra had used on her "White Trash Garlic Bread." She picked up another slice of the Italian cheese and declared, "This stuff, it rocks." The class concluded with a final test: five bowls of leek and potato soup. Three contained the same fresh soup with different salt levels, while two were from commercial mixes. Everyone selected the properly seasoned homemade version. As Lauri, a guest chef instructor, explained, "So now when you see a recipe that says 'Salt to taste,' that's all it means. If it doesn't have enough salt, like sample D, then add some. Just make it taste good to you." This simple explanation demystified what had seemed like an insider secret. This tasting exercise transformed the volunteers' relationship with food in ways that extended far beyond the classroom. It empowered them to trust their own palates and make informed choices about ingredients. As they learned to articulate differences in flavor, they gained the confidence to adjust seasonings without fear. Perhaps most importantly, they discovered that taste is personal - there is no universal "right" answer, only what tastes good to them. With this fundamental understanding, they could finally break free from slavish recipe-following and begin cooking intuitively, guided by their own newly awakened senses.

Chapter 4: Beyond the Box: Reclaiming Real Food from Processed Alternatives

"What's in the box?" Mike, Flinn's husband, asked one day after discovering he could make a cake from scratch without a mix. He had printed out a yellow cake recipe and was stunned by its simplicity. "You've got to see this. So get this, it's just flour, eggs, baking soda, milk, sugar, and butter. But with a box you already add eggs, milk, and oil, so what's in the freakin' box?" A fundamental truth had hit him: You don't need a box to make a cake. This revelation prompted Flinn to investigate the contents of boxed mixes and other convenience foods the volunteers relied on. Reading the ingredient list of a boxed pasta side dish was illuminating. The product, designed to approximate the flavor of pasta with Parmesan cheese and olive oil, contained twenty-seven ingredients - mostly chemicals, preservatives, artificial colors, and multiple forms of sodium. The contrast with the real version (pasta, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese) was striking. Similarly, boxed cake mix contained sugar as its primary ingredient, followed by enriched bleached wheat flour, partially hydrogenated oils, and a litany of artificial ingredients - compared to the simple flour, sugar, milk, eggs, butter, vanilla, and baking powder in a homemade recipe. What was particularly revealing was that using these mixes barely saved time. Multiple studies comparing preparation times found that making a cake from scratch versus a boxed version saved just one to six minutes. Why, then, had convenience foods become so prevalent? The answer lay partly in a decades-long marketing campaign that began after World War II, when food manufacturers needed new markets for food-science technology developed for army rations. As Laura Shapiro, author of "Something from the Oven," explained, "The food industry created a basic assumption about cooking generations ago, and it's now fully settled into place as reality. Cake mixes exist, therefore they are easier than real baking, therefore real baking is hard." The volunteers discovered this reality through taste comparisons. During one class, Lisa prepared homemade Alfredo sauce alongside a boxed version. The fresh sauce had a luxurious mouthfeel with subtle notes of pepper and garlic. By comparison, the boxed version had an overpronounced sweet cheesy flavor that quickly vanished into a salty aftertaste. Jodi refused to even try it: "I can actually smell the iodized salt in it." As the class progressed, the participants realized they'd been eating inferior versions of foods that were actually simple to make from scratch. Beyond taste, there were nutritional consequences to processed foods. Dr. David A. Kessler, author of "The End of Overeating," documented how food manufacturers deliberately engineered products with precise combinations of fat, salt, and sugar to trigger dopamine responses in the brain. This explained why some foods were hard to stop eating despite not tasting particularly good. When nutritionist Beve Kindblade visited the class, she explained that most convenience foods fail her basic criteria: at least three grams of fiber, less than six grams of sugar, and more than six grams of protein per serving. "That pretty much eliminates ninety percent of the prepared stuff you find in the supermarket." The growing awareness of what was actually in boxed and processed foods sparked significant changes among the volunteers. Dri made a decisive shift: "After the Alfredo versus Alfredo night, I just kind of decided to ditch most of that stuff anyway. I've just decided that I simply will not eat out of a box anymore." By learning simple cooking techniques and understanding the truth about convenience foods, the participants began reclaiming their kitchens from food manufacturers - one homemade meal at a time.

Chapter 5: Cooking Without Fear: From Culinary Anxiety to Kitchen Joy

"I never thought I'd be like that but I'm getting there," Jodi admitted, describing her evolving attitude toward cooking. "I went to make pancakes the other day and I looked at the label. It was basically just flour, hydrogenated oil, corn syrup, and baking soda. I thought, Do I really want to feed this stuff to my son? I looked up a pancake recipe in a cookbook and thought, That's it?" Her face displayed obvious pride as she reported making pancakes from scratch, mashing in an overripe banana. "He was like, 'Mommy, these are the greatest pancakes!'" Many volunteers initially approached cooking with profound anxiety. Donna struggled with self-doubt whenever she cooked. "My husband makes fun of me when I cut things. Whenever I cook, I screw everything up and then I lose my courage." Her brother used to tease her in the kitchen: "He'd say, 'Oh, you're not going to cook, are you? You're going to do it wrong and we're all going to die.'" These early experiences created lasting trauma around cooking. Similarly, Shannon's mother had snipped that she "burned everything," while Gen's mother was insulted when she learned her daughter was taking cooking classes: "I taught you how to cook! Why do you need a class?" The turning point for many came through simple successes. For Donna, it was roasting her first whole chicken. "I had wanted to roast a chicken, but I always felt intimidated." When it turned out perfectly, something shifted. "A week ago, my friend came over and she said, 'Wow, look at you, you're an amazing cook.' And I thought, What? It's just a roast chicken." Then she remembered that not long ago, that achievement had seemed impossible. Shannon experienced a similar breakthrough when she recreated a lamb ragout she'd tasted at a restaurant. "I looked online and found some recipes for ragout, but they all used ground lamb, which wasn't what they used. But I realized, Oh, that's just a braise. So I got a lamb shoulder and I cut it up into pieces and braised it... We were like, 'Oh, yum!' The funny thing about that story is that before class, I just don't think I would have ever thought to tackle something like that." For Gen, the most liberating moment came from something Flinn had said offhandedly in class: "No one is going to make you pack your knives and go home if a dish doesn't turn out." This permission to fail freed her to experiment. "That kind of attitude makes me more confident, and that's why I enjoy it more. It allows me to try things without getting worked up about it." She described spontaneously making a sauce with diced apple, rosemary, and white wine for fish. "I thought, What the heck? I'll give that a try. You know what? It was really good." As the volunteers gained skills, their relationship with cooking transformed from anxiety to joy. Cooking became less about following rigid instructions and more about creative expression. Jodi reflected on this evolution: "I used to follow everything to the letter. Now I'm not a slave to a recipe. I trust my taste more, and I'm getting better at knowing when a dish needs something and what that might be." Terri, the oldest participant at 61, expressed wonder at her own progress: "It is remarkable that at my age I can still change, and that I can still surprise myself." This transformation extended beyond the kitchen. As cooking confidence grew, so did overall self-confidence. Donna found herself standing up to her husband's food choices: "Now if we eat something homemade, I make it. The thing is that he hasn't changed, I'm the one who has changed." For these volunteers, learning to cook wasn't just about acquiring technical skills - it was about overcoming fear, embracing imperfection, and discovering the profound satisfaction that comes from nourishing oneself and others. As Julia Child famously said, "The only way you learn to flip things is to just flip them!" It was this courage - not just to cook but to risk failure - that ultimately transformed kitchen anxiety into kitchen joy.

Chapter 6: Waste Not, Want Not: The Economics and Ethics of Home Cooking

"It's kind of like a minefield trying to get past the crisper drawer," Dri confessed during her initial kitchen visit, describing the rotting produce she routinely found there. Food waste was a common theme among the volunteers. Donna's husband bought bulk produce at warehouse stores, only to throw half of it away. "My husband thinks that if you can get it cheaper in bulk, you should buy it even if you throw half of it away." When Flinn pointed out this waste, Donna's cheerful demeanor cracked. "I grew up not having much food in our house. We went to a lot of food banks as a kid. For me to throw away food, that's kind of sacrilegious. And, well, I work with starving kids in Africa." Her voice ratcheted up an octave. "So, yeah, it does bug me that we're throwing food away as if it's not important." Addressing this waste became a key focus of the project. Anthropologist Timothy Jones had found that Americans collectively waste about 40 percent of the food produced for consumption - approximately $100 billion annually. About 25 to 30 percent of this waste happens at home. During a class on leftovers, Chef Thierry Rautureau shared his personal perspective: "In America, we have a full fridge and it's so full that we can't even close the door. People look inside at this stuffed fridge and think, There's nothing to eat!" Growing up on a small farm in France, Thierry's family cooked only what they grew, eating meat just once a week. For him, food waste was unthinkable. The volunteers learned practical strategies to reduce waste. Chef Thierry advised buying smaller quantities more frequently: "Buy one pepper, not three. Buy three potatoes, not three pounds." He suggested putting a favorite photo in the back of the refrigerator - if you couldn't see it, the fridge was too full. Jenny, a supermarket chef, recommended planning meals before shopping. "The number one way to save money on your grocery bill is to not waste food," she explained. Rather than buying in bulk on everything, she advised stocking up on nonperishables but buying fresh items sparingly until you reliably use them all. Soups and stocks emerged as powerful tools for using leftovers. "Soup is a gift for leftovers," Chef Thierry declared. "In the summer, I love to make cold soups; in the winter, I make hot soups." The volunteers learned to save chicken bones and vegetable scraps for homemade stock - a practice that transforms what would be trash into a valuable cooking ingredient worth about $5 per chicken in commercial equivalence. Flinn also introduced them to the concept of the "desperation dinner" - quick meals made from whatever remained in the refrigerator, from flatbread topped with odds and ends to creative pasta dishes with leftover vegetables. Inspired by these lessons, Flinn conducted an experiment in her own kitchen. She tagged everything in her refrigerator with a Post-it note estimating its cost. If she had to throw something away, she moved the Post-it to a cabinet door. "Almost immediately, tossing something signaled defeat by surrender. My mind-set changed: Oh, no, I don't want to put that Post-it for this bell pepper on my door. Hmmm, what can I do with it?" At the end of two weeks, she'd thrown out about sixteen dollars in food - less than usual but still sobering. The economic and ethical dimensions of food waste transformed how the volunteers approached cooking and shopping. Donna began splitting warehouse purchases with a coworker. Jodi stopped buying in bulk for her small family. Many adopted the practice of checking what needed to be used before planning meals. Through these changes, they discovered that reducing waste wasn't just economically beneficial - it also created a more thoughtful, intentional relationship with food. As Doris Janzen Longacre wrote in "More-with-Less Cookbook," sometimes the answer isn't more elaborate meals or exotic ingredients, but simply doing more with less.

Chapter 7: The Transformation: Revisiting the Volunteers' Kitchens

Six months after the project began, Flinn returned to the volunteers' homes to assess what had changed. The transformations were remarkable, though they manifested differently for each person. Sabra, the twenty-three-year-old who had served frozen lasagna during the first visit, eagerly showed off her freezer. "Notice there are no frozen meals in here," she said proudly. Instead, it contained bags of vegetables, homemade leftovers portioned for lunches, and even chicken bones saved for stock. "While they're cheap, I just realized they aren't such a good deal after all," she explained about frozen dinners. Her fascination with McDonald's had subsided too: "It's funny how if you eat well and then you go eat fast food, you can really feel it. It kind of sinks in my stomach, and I can hear my body saying whoa whoa whoa, what the...? I don't want this." For Jodi, the project sparked a complete cooking revolution. She was now routinely making bread, roasting chickens, and preparing homemade pasta sauces. Her fridge contained more fresh produce and fewer processed foods. Interestingly, her newfound cooking skills had shifted the power dynamics in her marriage. "We've had a couple of arguments about cooking, but that's probably because I never used to have an opinion," she admitted. When her husband struggled to clean a pan, she confidently told him, "Just deglaze it," applying a technique she'd learned in class. "I went to the stove, got it hot, and added water, and it was clean like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "Ha, so I knew that, and he didn't." Donna's transformation came more gradually. Initially, it seemed the project hadn't affected her much at all. But a year later, she had established a Sunday cooking routine, preparing multiple meals that she portioned out for the week. In three months, she'd lost ten pounds. "After years of trying to find the 'secret' to battling my weight issues, I seem to have found it in cooking," she said. Most significantly, she had reclaimed agency in her relationship: "Now if we eat something homemade, I make it. The thing is that he hasn't changed, I'm the one who has changed." Shannon, who initially struggled with cooking meat and following recipes, was now confidently experimenting with complex dishes. "I looked online and found some recipes for ragout, but they all used ground lamb, which wasn't what they used. But I realized, Oh, that's just a braise." Her confidence had grown so much that she had earned her "Master Canner" designation and was teaching others, including Flinn herself. Cheryl had mastered soup-making and was successfully preparing game meats her husband brought home from hunting: "I used to think, What do I do with a pheasant? Then I learned to braise! Now a lot of my cooking is braising, braising, braising." Trish, the sixty-one-year-old psychologist who had been afraid of knives, experienced a more internal transformation. "So I don't think what I've bought or cooked has changed as much as something has changed in me," she reflected. "I'm more relaxed and I'm not so hard on myself." She had begun cooking from her meticulously organized recipe binders, something she'd previously been too intimidated to do. "I thought there couldn't be anything wrong with the recipe and so whatever went wrong was my fault," she explained. "Now I think I may not be the greatest cook, but I know that I can do it. I am not afraid of it." The most profound transformation wasn't about specific recipes mastered or ingredients used, but about the volunteers' relationship with food and with themselves. Gen summarized it well: "I feel like I'm part of this little community. It's really kind of cool, and I don't know, this sounds sort of dorky but it makes me feel like, wow, cooking can be fun in a way I never imagined." By learning basic cooking skills, these nine volunteers hadn't just changed how they ate - they had changed how they lived.

Summary

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School reveals a profound truth about modern American food culture: many people have been convinced that cooking real food is difficult, time-consuming, and beyond their abilities. Through teaching nine volunteers fundamental cooking skills, Kathleen Flinn demonstrates that this belief is largely a product of food marketing rather than reality. The volunteers - diverse in age, background, and socioeconomic status - shared common challenges: kitchen anxiety, reliance on processed foods, and significant food waste. As they mastered basic techniques like knife skills, roasting chicken, making bread, and understanding flavor, they discovered not just how to cook, but why they should cook. The transformation extended far beyond technical skills. Volunteers gained confidence that spilled into other areas of their lives. Donna found her voice in her marriage. Jodi began questioning the ingredients she fed her son. Sabra abandoned her reliance on fast food. What began as cooking lessons became lessons in self-reliance, thoughtful consumption, and the profound satisfaction of nourishing oneself and others. As Flinn discovered, teaching someone to cook is teaching them to trust themselves. The simple act of making a meal from scratch isn't just about saving money or eating healthier food - it's about reclaiming the fundamental human connection to what we eat. In a world of endless convenience and disconnection, the kitchen counter becomes a place of empowerment where, one meal at a time, we can transform not just ingredients, but ourselves.

Best Quote

“Find something you believe in. Then, just do it. That's what matters.” ― Kathleen Flinn, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks

Review Summary

Strengths: The book serves as an inspiration for the reviewer to return to cooking homemade meals, highlighting benefits such as cost-effectiveness, nutritional value, and the joy of cooking. It also provides practical insights, like the importance of good knives and a valuable bread dough recipe.\nOverall Sentiment: Enthusiastic\nKey Takeaway: The book successfully motivated the reviewer to change their cooking habits, emphasizing the advantages of homemade meals and the enjoyment of the cooking process.

About Author

Loading...
Kathleen Flinn Avatar

Kathleen Flinn

Kathleen Flinn is the author of The New York Times bestseller The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, a memoir with recipes about her experiences at the famed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Her second book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, tells the story of an unusual project in which Flinn delved into the lives of nine culinary novices and tried to figure out what lessons they could learn to become fearless home cooks. That book earned universally positive reviews from People magazine, the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and Amazon.com readers. Flinn offers unique guides for book clubs for each book: a menu guide for The Sharper Your Knife and a unique activities guide for The Kitchen Counter Cooking School.

Read more

Download PDF & EPUB

To save this Black List summary for later, download the free PDF and EPUB. You can print it out, or read offline at your convenience.

Book Cover

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

By Kathleen Flinn

Build Your Library

Select titles that spark your interest. We'll find bite-sized summaries you'll love.