The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry- Fish in Fragrant Coconut Sauce

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.

Tender at the Bone - Chicken Liver Pâté

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

By Ruth Reichl

289 pages, Random House, 1998

Photo by Aurélie Jouan

Ruth Reichl’s memoir Tender at the Bone ranks among my very favourite food memoirs, and among my favourite books. For many reasons. For one thing, it’s beautifully written in the kind of voice that makes me wish I were friends with the author. For another, it superbly describes the way food can shape the everyday lives and relationships of those who open themselves to it. There are many objective reasons to like this book (inasmuch as there is such a thing as objectivity in the reading experience). But many of the reasons I loved it are actually intensely personal.

Before I continue, you may notice that the photos in this post look much, much better than usual. This is because a friend of mine, the very talented Aurélie Jouan, was kind enough to come over for a photo shoot. I’m so grateful to her, especially since I made her shoot pâté, which is perhaps the least photogenic dish ever. And she still managed to make it look good! You can check out her work at www.aureliejouan.com.

Cooking for Gracie - Spaghetti with anchovies, walnuts, mint and breadcrumbs

Cooking for Gracie: The Making of a Parent From Scratch

By Keith Dixon

224 pages, Crown, 2011

Originally posted on The Chocolate Bunny on May 4^th, 2013 and edited for context and style.

Keith Dixon’s Cooking for Gracie is surprising reading choice for me. Allow me to explain why before getting to the book itself.

As soon as we announced my pregnancy in early 2012, people started giving us stuff. A lot of stuff. Most of the gifts were predictable, but very welcome: clothes, toys, gift certificates, more clothes. Others were pleasant surprises: a baby food maker, a soothing noise-making machine (which never really put the baby to sleep, but is still really cool – it projects waves of light and everything!). I was grateful for it all. But there is one type of gift which I specifically asked people not to give me (and fortunately, most of them complied): parenting books.

My dislike of parenting books (and most self-help books, really) stems from way before I ever became a parent myself: it started during my teen years. I was a fairly typical teenager, undergoing all the angst, drama, and emotional rollercoaster those years often entail. But around that time, my mother started developing the annoying habit of attributing anything I did that rubbed her the wrong way to my age. “I know teenagers are unkempt / rude to their parents / selfish, but I will not have you wear your hair like that / speak to me that way / behave like that.” It was as if I had been labelled practically overnight, and anything I did would inevitably be traced back to that label. Granted, not all her criticisms were undeserved: my hair was indeed a mess most of the time, and I wasn’t always the most thoughtful daughter. I was also moody and weird. But I could have been the best-groomed, most polite, most altruistic, most well-adjusted teen, and my mother probably would have found something else to blame on teenagehood. Looking back, I think she simply didn’t want her only child to grow up.

And one day, while browsing through one of our many bookshelves, I found The Book.