The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: Love, laughter and tears at the world's most famous cooking school

Piatkus, 2008, softcover, 285 pages, condition; very good. 

A true story of food, Paris, and the fulfilment of a lifelong dream In 2003, Kathleen Flinn, a thirty-six-year-old American living in London, returned from holiday to find that her corporate job had been terminated. Ignoring her mother's concern that she get another job immediately or never get hired anywhere ever again, Flinn cleared out her savings and moved to Paris to pursue a dream - a diploma from the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is the touching and remarkably funny account of Flinn's transformation as she moves through the school's intense programme and falls deeply in love along the way. More than two dozen recipes are interwoven within this unique look inside Le Cordon Bleu amid battles with demanding chefs, competitive classmates and her 'wretchedly inadequate' French. Flinn offers a vibrant portrait of Paris, one in which the sights and sounds of the city's street markets and purveyors come alive in rich detail. The ultimate wish fulfilment book, her story is a true testament to pursuing a dream.