While shopping one night, Le Cordon Bleu grad Flinn bumps into a woman whose cart is filled with hyper-processed food. They strike up a conversation, and it turns out the woman simply can’t cook. Following this grocery store epiphany, Flinn collects 9 volunteers--all non-cooks--for weekly cooking lessons, and The Kitchen Counter Cooking School is born. Flinn’s belief in the power of home cooking is contagious, and her foundational (and fantastic) recipes might just change the way you cook.

In this follow-up to The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, Flinn dives deep on her family of origin, with special emphasis on her parent’s long courtship and marriage, but discussing her own childhood and teenage years as well. We learn about her parents’ San Francisco pizza parlor and the special family recipes for Swedish pancakes and birthday cinnamon rolls. Overall, I didn’t enjoy this as much as The Sharper Your Knife, but the thing that made the story for me was a coincidence of place: I was delighted to read in these pages how her family discovered Anna Maria Island, Florida and made it a cherished family vacation destination. My own family vacationed there for years when I was a kid, and the descriptions of the landscape and local destinations (does anyone else here know Duffy’s?) infused my reading experience with unanticipated nostalgic joy. I don’t have deep personal ties to Michigan, but I also enjoyed reading about that place on the page, as the state plays a key role in her family’s heritage.

A previous Summer Reading Guide author. From the publisher: "Kathleen Flinn was a thirty-six-year-old middle manager trapped on the corporate ladder - until her boss eliminated her job. Instead of sulking, she took the opportunity to check out of the rat race for good - cashing in her savings, moving to Paris, and landing a spot at the venerable Le Cordon Blue cooking school. Filled with rich, sensual details of her time in the kitchen - the ingredients, cooking techniques, wine, and more than two dozen recipes - and the vibrant sights and sounds of the markets, shops, and avenues of Paris, it is also a journey of self-discovery, transformation, and, ultimately, love."