The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn

I didn't realize until I was halfway through this book that it was written by the same author of The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, which I read so long ago that I hardly remember any of it (except that I loved it and bought a copy so I could have the recipes for basic things like making stock). I basically only listened to this because it was available as an audiobook, and I was searching for some more books to listen to. It's not usually a good idea to listen to books with recipes in them, since you have to listen to them read a recipe instead of being able to see them. But I was really enthralled and interested in the story that Flinn wove, intertwining her new relationship with her husband with her moving to Paris to study at the Cordon Bleu cooking school, and all the lessons she learned there. I was fascinated learning about all the things that they studied there--like basically butchering every kind of animal and making many different kinds of sauces. Every recipe sounded incredibly complicated, and it reminded me of how basically incompetent I am in the kitchen compared to a professional. I think of myself as a pretty decent cook, but I stick to the level of browning meat for tacos and making spaghetti and meatballs. I don't de-bone chickens or fillet fish or spend hours making one dish. It's kind of the same experience as watching the Great British Bake-Off--I was super impressed by the amount of knowledge and skill she (and everyone else at the school) had to have to even be there to learn cooking. Flinn did an amazing job of talking about the specific things they studied in the school, and what she was doing at the same time in her personal life, and I thought it went really well together. It was a surprisingly compelling read (listen) considering it was "just" a food-based memoir. I really enjoyed it and it made me want to learn more cooking skills... someday.