This is non-fiction. I really enjoyed Kathleen Flinn's first book, The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry, which is about how when she lost a fancy-schmancy corporate job, she took her savings, moved to Paris and enrolled in a cooking course at Le Cordon Bleu.
In this one, she's back in the States, living in the PNW, and she starts a project to teach ordinary people how to cook. Not how to cook particular recipes, but how to do the basics of ordinary cookery.
Excellent mustachian book, about how to eat simple ingredients, well-prepared. Most of us will be able to identify with the volunteers for the project who use too many pre-packaged foods, eat out too often, eat foods heavy in bad fats, sodium, and just feel scared by cooking something like a roasted chicken. They aren't stupid, just uneducated and hesitant.
In the follow up Kathleen Finn goes back to each participant to find out if the skills they learned in the 9 session class have helped them cook/eat better. In almost every case, there has been some improvement.
I found this very inspirational and think you might too!
