Le Cordon Bleu, hoo, hoo, hoo

Feeling blue? Well, ‘Ms Fleen’ might advise sharpening your knives. Or is that how it really works? Maybe I didn’t get it quite right.

I read Kathleen Flinn’s account of her academic year at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, where she sought a degree in the culinary arts. I met Kathleen last summer at the University Farmer’s Market when I picked up my CSA box. She was a guest chef at the market and was promoting her book. I believe she was going to be making something with mushrooms. I know I stopped at one chef demo to look at mushrooms….

We had a conversation about the joys and rigors of a French culinary program. She gave me a postcard, I gave her a wave. Then, last week, my roommate comes home with a book she’d picked up at her friends’ (they were moving and chucking books). She saw The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry and thought I’d like it.

I was excited to read it and not have to pay for it. I was happy to be thought of by my roommate. I also still had the postcard, so it was an incredibly matched up book/postcard reading event. I liked that. You’d think this was going to be the greatest story with such a setup.

My inability to really pin down why it wasn’t the greatest is disappointing. I really ought to. Maybe since I essentially believe my program was more difficult, my life in Lyon more fascinating, and my love life less to brag about (I couldn’t take even one of my marriage proposals seriously that year) it just comes down to my not being that impressed. Perhaps Flinn’s journalistic training made it all too much like compiled notes rather than a great journey.

Without a stitch of training at the Cordon Bleu I defiantly deboned and stuffed a chicken tonight. Maybe someone will mention that in my obituary? It was delicious. Hmm, and now I’ve written a blog entry my life is, perhaps, complete?