In 2003, Kathleen Flinn was a thirty-six-year-old American in London who felt trapped in corporate middle management - until her boss eliminated her job while she was on vacation. Ignoring her mother"s advice that she find another job immediately or "never get hired anywhere ever again," Flinn cleared out her savings and moved to Paris to pursue a dream - a diploma from the venerable Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. But instead of being ushered into "a glamorous world of soufflas and foie gras," Flinn found herself struggling in a stew of hot-tempered chefs, competitive classmates, and her own "wretchedly inadequate" French. She trudged home traumatized by gutting fish, severing the heads off rabbits, and dropping an entire roast duck on the floor moments before having to present her plate to the presiding chef. One day she was even advised that her tronaons de colin pochas needed "a bit more salt" from the homeless man who sat near the school"s entrance. As the story moves...