The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks

by Kathleen Flinn

Overview

The author of the New York Times bestseller The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry tells the inspiring story of how she helped nine others find their inner cook.

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, writer Kathleen Flinn returned with no idea what to do next, until one day at a supermarket she watched a woman loading her cart with ultraprocessed foods. Flinn's "chefternal" instinct kicked in: she persuaded the stranger to reload with fresh foods, offering her simple recipes for healthy, easy meals. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School includes practical, healthy tips that boost readers' culinary self-confidence, and strategies to get the most from their grocery dollar, and simple recipes that get readers cooking.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143122173
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/25/2012
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	74,090
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kathleen Flinn has been a writer and journalist for nearly twenty years. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, USA Weekend, Men’s Fitness, and many other publications. She is a proud member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Author’s Guild. She divides her time between Seattle and southwest Florida.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The author's humble approach is inviting and shows why her students were enthusiastic." —-Kirkus Starred Review

Editorial Reviews

"This could be the most important book you'll ever read."
—Morgan Spurlock, Super Size Me

“…[A] terrific, inspiring book…”

-People (A People Pick, 4 stars)

"If you are going to read one book to change your diet and your life, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School is it."

-AP

"Kathleen entered the kitchens of strangers and took the time to understand how they think about food before changing their cooking forever." 
—Amanda Hesser, Food 52, The Essential New York Times Cookbook

“A life-changing book—entertaining, inspiring, and deeply educational."
—Erica Bauermeister, The School for Essential Ingredients

"A funny, thoroughly engrossing book...get ready to be inspired—and to eat well along the way." —Molly Wizenberg, Orangette.com, A Homemade Life

"An engaging...book on the joys of home cooking and the teaching thereof."

-The Wall Street Journal

"The author''s humble approach is inviting and shows why her students were enthusiastic."

-Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Flinn guides you patiently in the kitchen like the mom you always wish you''d had to learn to cook from...the women gained confidence under Flinn''s wonderfully encouraging tutelage, and fearlessly faced their kitchens and grocery stores with useful knowledge."

-Publishers Weekly

"Flinn winningly offers inspiration to anyone who cares about cooking but lacks basic tools and skills."

-Booklist

"An amiable companion to cookbook stalwarts such as Mark Bittman''s How To Cook Everything, Pam Anderson''s How To Cook Without a Book, and Michael Ruhlman''s Ratio, this title provides encouragement where the others offer direction. A mash-up of inspiration and reference, it will appeal to readers who enjoy a story with their instruction."

-Library Journal

— The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

From the Publisher

"This could be the most important book you'll ever read."
—Morgan Spurlock, Super Size Me

“…[A] terrific, inspiring book…”
-People (A People Pick, 4 stars)

"If you are going to read one book to change your diet and your life, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School is it."
-AP

"Kathleen entered the kitchens of strangers and took the time to understand how they think about food before changing their cooking forever."
—Amanda Hesser, Food 52, The Essential New York Times Cookbook

“A life-changing book—entertaining, inspiring, and deeply educational."
—Erica Bauermeister, The School for Essential Ingredients

"A funny, thoroughly engrossing book...get ready to be inspired—and to eat well along the way." —Molly Wizenberg, Orangette.com, A Homemade Life

"An engaging...book on the joys of home cooking and the teaching thereof."
-The Wall Street Journal

"The author's humble approach is inviting and shows why her students were enthusiastic."
-Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Flinn guides you patiently in the kitchen like the mom you always wish you'd had to learn to cook from...the women gained confidence under Flinn's wonderfully encouraging tutelage, and fearlessly faced their kitchens and grocery stores with useful knowledge."
-Publishers Weekly

"Flinn winningly offers inspiration to anyone who cares about cooking but lacks basic tools and skills."
-Booklist

"An amiable companion to cookbook stalwarts such as Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, Pam Anderson's How To Cook Without a Book, and Michael Ruhlman's Ratio, this title provides encouragement where the others offer direction. A mash-up of inspiration and reference, it will appeal to readers who enjoy a story with their instruction."
-Library Journal

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

"If you are going to read one book to change your diet and your life, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School is it."

The Associated Press

Seattle food writer Flinn (The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry) guides you patiently in the kitchen like the mom you always wish you’d had to learn how to cook from. Although a graduate of Paris’s elite Cordon Bleu School, Flinn, like Julia Child before her, aims to demystify rarefied culinary know-how and bring basic cooking lessons to the simplest level.. Inspired by a cable TV show that walked guests through their own closets and tutored them on what to wear, Flinn chose nine eager-to-learn women of all backgrounds and ages for her experiment, examined their kitchen cabinets and refrigerators with them, and made each one prepare one of their typical dishes. The results were sadly predictable, as most relied on prepackaged ingredients. Moreover, the waste was staggering (many shop at warehouse stores and buy too much). Over the course of several weeks’ worth of lessons, recorded in chapters, Flinn instructed the women in the rudiments of preparing food: from wielding knives, comparing tastes (i.e., salts, mustards), cooking vegetables four ways then “splashing” with flavors, mastering a vinaigrette and omelet, handling chicken, meat cuts, and fish, and even baking bread. In the end, the women gained confidence under Flinn’s wonderfully encouraging tutelage, and fearlessly faced their kitchens and grocery stores with useful knowledge. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A Seattle-based writer turned chef demonstrates how readers can transform their lives with the right recipe.

After a stint at Paris' Le Cordon Bleu, Flinn returned to the States to pen her 2008 debut,The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. But after the critical acclaim and the endless book touring subsided, the author found herself at a loss for her next project until she stumbled across the TV program What Not to Wear. Envisioning a cooking class that would dig through pantries and cupboards in a manner befitting the show's hosts, Flinn took on a group of nine culinary novitiates and imparted technique and skill, giving them confidence in the kitchen. The author began by taking inventory of each participants' refrigerator, cabinets and eating habits. A friend's step-daughter, Sabra, was a disaster in the kitchen, so she usually relied on frozen dinners. One of her go-to concoctions, "White Trash Garlic Bread," is enough to give any reader, no matter how unseasoned a chef, pause: "She slathered one-half of a soft hamburger bun with Gold 'n Soft margarine, added a few hearty shakes of generic garlic salt, and topped it with dried Parmesan cheese from a can." Another woman admitted to buying in bulk, only to later feel awful about the amount of food she wasted. Flinn's chronicle of her culinary coaching discusses how her students fared, and acknowledges how the process led her to clean out her own cupboards: "I am in a battle with myself. It seemed that I had as much to learn as the people I'd just visited."

The author's humble approach is inviting and shows why her students were enthusiastic.

Kirkus Reviews