The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School
by Kathleen Flinn [641.507 Fli]

As the author, Kathleen Flinn, writes, "if you can't cook, you're reliant on others to make your meals and most often they're corporations. They're biggest motivation? It's not your health, it's their bottom line." The author invited nine volunteers for basic classes on food -- volunteers who loaded their kitchen cupboards with boxes of processed groceries. The book is divided into parts and each describes a food product or group and how best to prepare it. The chapter on meat discussing the many hormones and antibiotics that are fed to livestock gives one pause. The chapter on chicken, "Fowl Play," explains how to cut up a chicken and the hundreds of options for serving a bird. Also included are chapters on basic knife skills, spices and their combinations, vinaigrettes, bread, pastas, fish, eggs, stocks, and soups. Each chapter ends with the recipes that are taught in the class. One especially interesting thing Flinn notes is a whole history on cake mix in a chapter called "What's in the Box" that recounts the history of many convenience foods and their origins in WWII army rations. Flinn was not interested in turning out The Next Iron Chef, but rather helping people become comfortable in making some basic recipes and unafraid to try new. "Try to find a comfortable place somewhere between Tuna Helper and Top Chef. If you burn, scorch, drop, boil over, overcook, undercook, underseason or otheriwse put a meal together that's less than a success, in the end it doesn't matter. It's just one meal. You'll make another one tomorrow." Some very good hints and instructions in this book. Even if you're a competent cook, this makes you want to enroll in a basic course at the community college. -- recommended by Charlotte K. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ official Kathleen Flinn web site and book page ]

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