Reading About Cooking

One would think reading and cooking are two different things, one doing, the other thinking. Lots of people read cookbooks however, without cooking.This writer is one such person! We come to the other path, reading a memoir about cooking. These are three such books.

Kathleen Flinn's memoir, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks is fascinating. After the author had gotten her culinary degree in Paris, she was unsure what to do. When she noticed a woman in the supermarket, cart stacked with processed and packaged food her "chefternal" side took over, and she helped the woman buy ingredients for dinners and told her how to cook them. When the woman earnestly thanked her, an idea was born. She publicized her cooking school with an ad in the paper, then visited the the people who replied. All were inexperienced home cooks, some never learned, some felt intimidated. All benefited! We get to know the students as they work their way through knife skills, cutting up chickens and bread. Recipes too! A fun and interesting read. ML

Ellie Mathews wrote The Ungarnished Truth: A Cooking Contest Memoir about her experience winning the Pillsbury Bake Off. When she entered her Salsa CousCous Chicken recipe she had no idea she would win a million dollars. The book is funny in a mildly satirical way as Ellie is drawn deeper
into the cooking contest subculture. She gives you the million dollar recipe too! ML

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton is not a strictly chronological memoir, but a passionate discussion of a difficult life. Gabrielle's father was an artist, her mother a Frenchwoman who stayed home and cooked for her large family. To Gabrielle it was idyllic, until the divorce. Mom and the older kids took off and Gabrielle was left to her own devices. At 13 she started working, at 16 moving to New York City. What followed was 20 hard years in the food industry, opening a restaurant, and getting a MFA from University of Michigan. She eventually opened a celebrated restaurant and married an Italian man in spite of being a professed lesbian! This memoir features wonderful, sensual writing about food, rage, and a longing to find home. One of the best I've read! ML