The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks

I have been cooking for many, many years. I have children, grandchildren and now a great grandchild! I have cooked for everyone and I thought I knew a lot about cooking. However, as I went through this book, I learned so many things I have done wrong all my life - such as keeping too much food in the refrigerator and pantry. There is only two of us now and we do have a busy life so I guess as Kathleen says, "I buy for the life I inspire to have rather than my real life." I used to end up with wilted romaine, yellow broccoli with flowers, and limp celery too often. After reading the book, I have changed my buying habits - I shop more often and buy less produce at a time. So far I have wasted nothing and I feel so proud. I even put a photo at the back of my fridge which I can always see - so my fridge isn't stuffed any more. Sometimes it looks even a little bare but there is no waste. I also learned to taste all kinds of canned goods - what a difference in canned beans when I was making chili. I even threw out one can - it was that bad. Some store brands are better than others but sometimes you have to go with the name brand for taste and texture. I have been practicing my knife skills too and I chop things so much faster now. I like showing that off to my hubby (who doesn't cook at all by the way). My pantry is getting bare but that's okay - I know everything I have and I am sure nothing is out of date. The bonus is I have saved a lot of money at the grocery store and I like that. I make all my own salad dressings now and that is great fun and a real saving. You're never too old to learn new tricks in the kitchen. This book is not only a great read - it is life changing! I loved it.

As someone who always takes a gander at what other people are purchasing at the grocery store, I was pretty much hooked from the kindle sample where the author stalks and accosts a woman at the store because her cart is full of packaged processed foods that, while being less healthy, would end up being much more expensive than making the same foods from real ingredients. She shows the woman how buying a whole chicken and butchering it is less expensive than buying just the breast meat and helps her swap out some items, giving her some simple recipes to follow. I think the book may have been more colorful and entertaining if Kathleen Flinn continued on in this appalled way with a fair amount of hectoring factored in, but she's way too nice and gentle for that. I didn't find her judgmental or condescending at all. Still, the book did not disappoint and I thought it was a page turner oddly enough in that she selects 9 other women to help and you really want these women to do well. In terms of the cooking school, their progress and their bland comments kind of blend into one another, but the introductions for most of them are interesting in that they represent a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds as well as cooking aspirations. One woman is perfectly happy with McDonald's and powder cheese on an English muffin but has been coerced into the project for health reasons, while others purchase lovely produce from farmers' markets, which they let wither in the fridge, not knowing what to do with it. Some cook for large families on a budget and some find it hard to be motivated to cook for one. If you want to cook more than you do, you are going to relate to one or another of the issues that Flinn brings to light. The cooking lessons are well thought out and each culminates with a classic recipe that can be tweaked to your tastes. All these basic recipes--the ratio for vinaigrettes, roast chicken, no-knead bread, fish baked in parchment paper--can be found online dozens of times over, but it's nice to have it all in one place in its most simple form, plus she provides optional flavor combinations that I found useful, promoting the idea that cooking ought to be a free-ranging expression of skill, habit, and what happens to be in your pantry, not some painstaking endeavor where you have to measure everything out and constantly refer to a detailed recipe out of fear of getting one step wrong--which is usually how I cook. This book opens you up to experimentation and failure on a small scale. After all, if you cook every day, one mediocre meal is not going to make or break you. It also inspired me to use everything I buy. So much is wasted out of misguided aspiration or just bad organization. She espouses purchasing better quality ingredients at a higher cost, but if you aren't wasting anything, it probably evens out. There is a fair amount of food politics and if you're aware of Michael Pollan and every other food persona who writes of sourcing your food, there is nothing new here. But thankfully, she keeps those parts short and credits everyone suitably. I also thought, like another reviewer, that she needn't have gone into a narrative about her Mediterranean cruise--it made it seem like the book was a chronological narrative about this time in her life when I think the better book is a more tightly focused one on these women she decided to help--and the homes they keep (so voyeuristic!). Too bad the lone man dropped out.

I am the family cook and am pretty good at getting dinner on the table. This book is inspiring and has lots of easy simple tips on tools food and cooking. Really enjoyed it.

This was a great read! Very inspiring for home cooks like myself. The beginning is an introduction to the cooking school volunteers and where they're at in the beginning. After the classes, you get to see how everyone changed and where they're at now - loved their personal stories. Also love the recipes in this book. I just made the Alfredo from this book and it was amazing - and so simple! She really makes cooking seem easy and makes you want to stop eating out so much and just get in the kitchen and have fun! I will be reading this book again, it's staying in my collection!

I actually bought 2 of this book. Great general principles of cooking. I need a recipe but this gave me courage to step outside the box, so to speak. Teaching woman how to cook from scratch and therefor not only save money but cook which leads to more healthy meals. Shop around the outside of the store: produce, dairy, meat, chicken, fish - fresh ingredients. And what to do with the leftover ingredients when they are just on the very of "going bad" to make another meal or 2. Some of the women had never even touched a raw chicken, let alone know how to cut one up. But you don't always have to cut it up, you can roast it whole = many meals. Very easy suggestions with some recipes. I'll never buy store-bought salad dressing again!

I really enjoyed reading this book for various reasons. It was interesting to have a look into how other people approach cooking. Then the tips and simple recipes are very helpful. I had borrowed the book on my Kindle from the library. By the time I finished the book I had ordered a hardback copy for my personal use. I've always enjoyed cooking but never have felt I could do much without a recipe or prepackaged food. This book made me think about how I approach cooking and why I have this approach. My mother cooked from scratch when I was a kid. We had a garden and chickens but all of that was gone by the time I was a teenager. So I learned to cook with packaged foods and by heating up canned items. I love to follow a recipe but that is not practical to do for every dish every day. When I try to wing it I end up overwhelmed and with food that is bland or over-seasoned. I did the salt taste test between sea salt and the iodized salt. It was amazing the difference in taste. I thought salt was salt! I'm throwing out the iodized salt. The information in this book also fit in with my goals to eat better and spend less money. I hope to share the ideas from the book with my 20 year old son and get him away from cans & packages. The only reason I give it 4 instead of 5 stars is the story about her being on the cruise and some of the dinners she held seemed out of place in the book.

I really struggle with any kind of kitchen confidence, so when a reader on Anne’s podcast listed this as one of her top 3 favorite books EVER, I knew I had to order it. Guys, this book is a game changer!! I mean, it made me YouTube proper knife holding and chopping techniques. Then I bought everything I need to make HOMEMADE BREAD. I also plan to roast a whole chicken and use the bones and leftovers to make my own chicken stock. Who am I? Well, after reading this book, I felt like I was a student of a Le Cordon Bleu educated chef. I was fascinated by this book. The theories on how America became a boxed food nation, how easy it is to make the REAL version of the boxed/bagged foods, etc. kept me up reading into the wee hours. I was tagging the recipes I wanted to try in a book that was reading like a novel/memoir. It’s SO GOOD. I think it should be required reading for students who are about to embark on the real world. Also, for the love of God, our country needs to bring home education back to high schools. Robert and I were debating on this (he thinks a shop class would be more important, of course, because he’s a boy!), so I want to hear that you think!

I ran across this book a few years ago, and I've since given a copy to each of my kids as they've moved out. This book has very few "true" recipes...the purpose is to teach the reader basic skills (cutting up a chicken, making a vinaigrette, etc), and then show them all the possibilities now that they have those basic skills. For instance, what are some different ideas for seasoning that chicken you just cut up? The book is written almost as a memoir of a weeks-long cooking class the author gave to a group of people who were unsure of their cooking abilities; it is interesting to read, and also very informative. I am an experienced and confident cook, yet I still learn something more each time I read it.

This book read more like a TV show that was desperately trying to get more viewers by making people appear more stupid than they might be. A book format of this kind does not appeal to me. I don't want to read a book about some random women who don't know what to do with raw vegetables or how to handle a knife. The book has been written in a very boring manner. Not recommended.

I have been cooking for myself and my family for 20 plus years now. I have long placed importance on taking the time to cook from scratch with unprocessed products as much as possible and I love to cook. I had a Mom who cooked home made meals for us regularly and I took an interest in cooking early on. Having said that, I still gleaned an astonishing amount of knowledge from this book, as well as inspiration and enlightenment. I love how the writer ties food to our emotional lives. I had never before considered how closely our relationship with food is intertwined with our emotions and how our early experiences shapes how we deal with it as we grow up. But it makes so much sense, when you consider food is necessary sustenance for life. I also found the book to be a fun, engaging read and the writer just simplifies cooking so very, very well. I tend to be the kind of cook who needs a recipe to get started, but through this book I've found the tools and the confidence to start simply putting things together on my own, which is so liberating! I highly recommend this book for ANYONE ~ young/old, non cook, beginner, old pro ~ whatever! I will have both of my children read it at some point.

Very interesting and informative book.

I had read the previous book and enoyed it as a good story but I found this book to be very informational and very useful. First time I read it I made a homemade carrot soup and a stew on a Sunday and the family fell on it like ravening wolves. I came to understand cooking better and stopped buying prepackaged as it is not necessary. Right now have a beef barley soup in the crockpot and baked the book's artisan bread recipe without difficulty. First time I made that bread, everyone sat down and ate it hot with butter right from the oven. I am buying three copies for Xmas gifts for people I know. So yes, an excellent purchase as a story and a cookbook all in one. It belongs in the kitchen for sure. I hope to see more.

Really enjoyed this book by Kathleen Flynn- it helped me to organize my own thoughts for 'cooking school', and was inspiring to hear about people becoming confident because of well thought out freedom to experiment.