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Table of Contents

ALSO BY KATHLEEN FLINN

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the Worlds Most Famous Cooking School

For my mother, Irene

For encouraging me to find joy in everything, not just cooking

Authors Note

In theory, the story presented herein represents a year of my life teaching one round of lessons to nine volunteer students. In reality, its the result of numerous additional kitchen visits, scores of interviews with cooks, researchers, and cooking teachers, plus my own teaching experiences in the year since the project ended.

I recorded every home interview and most of the original classes, resulting in about fifty hours of video and two hundred pages of handwritten notes. Ive done my best to portray events accurately, but consolidated or shifted events and comments in some situations. In a few scenes, the dialogue in classes was built from memory. The names of some of the volunteers and their children have been changed to protect their privacy.

When it comes to the techniques taught here, ardent foodies or culinary professionals may debate the right method to roast a chicken or some other technique. I might even look back on these lessons to find that I have changed the way I teach the same recipes. Thats one of the great things about cooking; theres more than one way to skin a fish. As long as an approach yields good, nourishing food, it isnt wrong.

PROLOGUE

The Woman with the Chicken

You teach best what you most need to learn.

Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Normally, I do not stalk people in grocery stores.

I confess to the occasional practice of supermarket voyeurism. But who doesnt sometimes notice the curious collections of fellow shoppers, then contemplate what they may reveal about them?

What goes on in the home of a hunched, graying woman with nineteen cans of cat food, iceberg lettuce, a family pack of steaks, and a copy of In Style magazine? Or a young woman in full stage makeup oblivious to the world outside her headphones, a pack of tofu hot dogs among the contents of a hand basket nestled in the crook of her tattoo-littered arm? Or an elegant man with a perfect manicure who lingers over the imported cheese counter, his cart filled with organic greens, expensive olives, and four bottles of champagne? Every grocery cart tells a story.

Late on an otherwise average Tuesday afternoon, a sight near the canned tuna stopped me dead in my tracks. The cart sat as if abandoned in the middle of the aisle. It contained two dozen haphazardly piled boxes of dehydrated mixes for pasta, casseroles, rice, and stuffing and dubious jars of gravy. Despite being half full, the cart contained no real food. As I stood contemplating its contents, a heavyset woman in her late thirties, casually attired in an eggplant-colored fleece, claimed the cart. Her preteen daughter twirled impatiently around her, quietly singing a Lady Gaga song under her breath.

Would it be wrong if I followed her to find out what else she might buy?

Small basket in hand, I trailed behind her to stealthily observe. I feigned interest in various items along the aisles as she stocked up on packaged waffles and pizza pretzel bites, a collection of frozen dinners, chicken potpies, and a family-style package of pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy.

By the time we hit the meat department, I suspected she was onto me. Hugging my shoulders against the damp chill and trying to avoid inhaling the vague smell of chlorine, I clumsily relied upon my peripheral vision to spy her selecting a heavy family-sized pack of ground hamburger at the other end of the case. She pushed her cart in my direction. I pretended to peruse the plastic-wrapped turkey options. Can you believe how expensive chicken breasts are these days? Crazy, she said out loud, to no one in particular. She reluctantly tossed a package into her cart.

I seized the opportunity to say something. Whole chickens are on sale, I said. Ninety-nine cents a pound, I think.

She chuckled. Thanks, but I would have no idea what to do with a whole chicken.

It hit me. After a year deboning chickens and stuffing meat with other meats at a famous Paris cooking school, I had information this woman needed. For some reason, at that moment, I felt compelled to give it to her. Come with me. Ill get someone to show you how to cut up a chicken.

Ah, no, thanks, she said. A reasonable response given that I was a complete stranger who had followed her for twenty minutes through the maze of grocery store aisles.

Somehow I assured her that I was not trying to sell a time-share in front of the turkey kielbasa. She shrugged and said, Okay, why not? We headed over to the butcher.

Sure, Im happy to show you how to cut it up, no problem, the butcher said as I handed him the chicken. The woman peered over the glass case to his thick white cutting board as he sectioned the bird deliberately. He stopped to show her how each cut was done. As he finished, he crackled fresh butcher paper around the pieces.

So just how much is that whole chicken? she asked.

He looked at the tag. Lets see, its on sale, so $5.20.

How much would that go for if you sold me the pieces all cut up and packaged, like those breasts over there? She waved toward the meat case.

He looked up, mumbled abstractly under his breath, counting on his fingers. Well, breasts are out at $5.99 a pound, the thighs at $2.29, so Id say about $10 or so.

Get out! she exclaimed. So I pay twice the price to buy it as separate pieces? Well, who knew that! She smiled broadly.

He winked and passed her the freshly wrapped chicken. It landed heavy in her hand. She looked thoughtful. What is it? I asked.

She looked around, leaned forward, and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, I dont know what to do with the other parts of the chicken. I only know how to cook the breasts. She shrugged, embarrassed. But thanks for your help.

As she pushed her cart away, her daughter in tow, I stopped her. I could not let this woman go without knowing what to do with the rest of her chicken. By chance, this supermarket happened to be carrying the paperback of my first book. I fetched a copy. I flipped to a recipe for braised chicken thighs with mustard and then to one for stock.

At first, she didnt believe it was my book. I showed her my drivers license. Im not trying to sell you a book, I assured her. Im happy to buy it for you. I cant explain it, but I just really want to help you.

For the next hour, I led her around the store, making notes in the margins and writing new recipes in the notepad that I always carry in my purse. We discussed why she bought so many boxes and cans, and as we did, I slowly convinced her to clear out most of them from her cart and replace them with the real food that the boxed versions attempted to replicate. A three-pound beef roast replaced four shelf-stable individual pot roast dinners. When rounded out with inexpensive vegetables, the roast would yield a dozen servings for the same price.

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