Outside A Dog

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn is another one of those books that I knew I had to read when I stumbled across it in a bookstore. [I promise, I don't do this with everything I see...] But really, Paris and cooking in one book?

Kathleen Flinn returned to her job in London after a vacation only to find she’d lost her job. In a bit of a tizzy to figure out what to do next, she turned to her boyfriend, Mark, who encouraged her to follow her dream of moving to Paris to study at Le Cordon Bleu. Despite her only rudimentary French, she and Mark packed up and headed to Paris. To earn her desired degree from Le Cordon Bleu, Kathleen needed to complete three courses: Basic, Intermediate, and Superior Cuisine, all while surviving an unfamiliar city, competitive classmates, cranky chefs, and her own life.

This book is a little heavier on the more romantic and day-to-day aspects of Kathleen’s life than I would have expected from a book hanging out the shelf below Bill Buford’s Heat, but that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it — I am female, after all, and what’s not to like about falling in love in [and with] Paris? As a bit of a bonus, each chapter ends with a recipe — though, sadly but understandably, not the ones Kathleen learned while at Le Cordon Bleu.

Overall, though, one things stands out: this book did a great job of fueling the fire of my desire to move to Paris and learn to cook à la Julia Child. Not like I really needed any more help, though.