The Sharper
Your Knife, The Less You Cry: Love, Laughter and Tears at the World’s Most
Famous Cooking School in Paris
By Kathleen Flinn
304 pages, Penguin
Books, 2007
I have always known I could never cook
professionally. I lack the drive and the discipline, not to mention the palate.
More importantly, I have no wish to turn yet another hobby into a job, because
jobs can turn into chores, and I have enough chores in my life.
And yet… Who, among those of us who love to cook,
hasn’t daydreamed about going to a culinary academy, of learning how to really
do things properly, and eventually earning one’s living brightening people’s
day thanks to bold flavours and luscious textures? Even though we’ve read Kitchen Confidential and know how tough
cooking professionally is, we still hold on to that vision of the radiant,
fulfilled culinary student, happily whisking meringue in her luminous kitchen.
Kathleen Flinn turned
her daydreams into reality in 2005, when she lost her job and made the
spontaneous decision to attend Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. Predictably
enough, reality turned out to be much harsher, but The Sharper Your Knife is ultimately more fond reminiscence than
cautionary tale.
