A review by juliana_aldous
The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn

5.0

One of my twitter friends recommended this book a year or so ago and it finally came up on my Kindle queue to read. I liked this book. I liked it so much that I plan on ordering a hard copy to keep in my kitchen and use for mark-up. Another memoir project book in the vein of Under the Tuscan Sun and Julie and Julia I thought this a cut above others I've read recently.

Kathleen Flinn previously wrote about her experiences at the Parisian Le Corden Bleu cooking school. Here she shows what she did later with that experience. After observing a mother and daughter pack up their grocery cart with packaged food--Kathleen approached them and asked them why they didn't cook fresh. Seeing a need here--Kathleen decides to interview a group of women about their fears around cooking and then takes them through a class to teach them the basics of using knives in the kitchen, roasting chicken, making vinaigrettes, etc. Along the way you learn each woman's story, hear what happens in the class (and after the class) and you learn a few recipes. I really enjoyed this book and I learned a few things from it. I roasted my own chicken (which I know how to do but hadn't done in a while) and have done some experimenting since with a few leftovers.

What I still need to do is take a class or watch a few youtube videos on how to use a knife.