At the age of thirty-six, Kathleen Flinn was rapidly climbing the corporate ladder and growing more unhappy with every rung.

Then one day, she returned from vacation to learn that her company had downsized and eliminated her job in the process. In the name of her career, Kathleen had put most everything in her life on the back burner—her family, her relationships, even her health—and when her job disappeared, she felt rejected, burnt out and lost.

Does this sound familiar? Yet instead of listening to her mother’s frantic warnings that she get another desk job immediately or risk permanent unemployment, Kathleen cleaned out her savings and packed her bags for Paris to pursue a lifelong dream: enrolling in the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.

THE SHARPER YOUR KNIFE, THE LESS YOU CRY is the touching and humorous story of Flinn’s transformation as she makes her way through the school’s arduous curriculum and finds her soulmate along the way.

It follows the good (falling in love in the most romantic city in the world while learning to cook like Julia Child) and the bad (with only a very basic understanding of the French language, learning to gut fish and cut the heads off rabbits under the strict tutelage of ill-tempered chefs).

“The sharper your knife, the less you cry,” Le Cordon Bleu’s Chef Savard told the class. He may have been referring to onions, but Kathleen came to understand his words as so much more. She had cried innumerable tears not knowing what she wanted from the world. But when she finally cut out the parts of her life that had prevented her from following her passion, the tears dried up.

Over two dozen recipes are interwoven through this moving new memoir. From the trials and tribulations of the kitchen to vibrant descriptions of Paris and its innumerable purveyors to the growth of her romance with the man she eventually marries, Kathleen’s account is a powerful testament to what can happen when you follow your dreams.

About the Author
KATHLEEN FLINN has been a writer and journalist for nearly twenty years. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, USA Weekend, Men’s Fitness and many other publications. She divides her time between Seattle and southwest Florida.