I’m the author of three books, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School (2011) and The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry (2007), and Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good (2014), all published by Viking/Penguin. I am at work on multiple projects, including two books (one fiction and one non-fiction) and a cookbook of sorts. All of my books explore identity through the lens of food. I didn’t start out with that idea, it just occurred to me while I was updating this page. Are you holding a book club meeting? I have called into more than 100 such groups. Drop me a line and I’ll see if I can make yours.

You can also buy signed copies of all of my books. Really. I’ll even throw in a nice birthday, best wishes or Happy/Merry Christmas card. Send an email with their name, address and what you’re wanting to share and we’ll send you back a Paypal or Square invoice. Paperbacks are $15, hardcover $25 (Burnt Toast only). We send them out in a padded Priority Mail envelope, so tack on $5 for shipping.

I’m a HUGE supporter of independent bookstores. If you buy a copy at an independent bookstore and want it signed, send it to me and I will pay the cost to ship it back to you. I might even toss in a free gift. Just send me an email. 

Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good

My great-grandmother arrived at Ellis Island from Sweden in 1890. She was 17, traveling alone, and carried a single suitcase, an English phrase book and the equivalent of $36 in today’s currency. Somehow she made her way to family friends in Michigan where, with few other options, she became a cook. Thus began three generations who cooked for love or for passion (and sometimes both), in what I refer to as a multi-generational memoir. This book looks at how cooking shaped three generations in the Midwest, with a bit of bigamy and bootlegging thrown in to keep things interesting.

The recipes in this book are my family heirlooms, what we inherited in place of sterling silver: Corn flake-crusted fried chicken, Grandpa Charles’ spicy San Antonio chili and my grandmother’s birthday-only cinnamon rolls. Through these flavors, I came to understand how meals can be memories and cooking can be communication. Of all my books, this one is the most personal. (If you can say that after writing three memoirs.)

Everybody loved this one. It fetched glowing reviews on Kirkus, Goodreads.com, Shelf Awareness and BookList. It was named a 2015 Notable Book by the Library of Michigan and a finalist in numerous awards programs, including the IACP Cookbook Awards (for literary food writing), the Goodreads Choice Awards and the Pacific Northwest Book Award.

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The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

Inspired by a supermarket encounter with a woman loading up on processed foods, I decided to use my culinary training to help nine novice cooks find their cooking confidence. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School takes these lessons and provides practical, healthy tips to boost your culinary self-confidence, and strategies to get the most from your grocery dollars, as well as simple recipes to get you cooking. Widely acclaimed, this book was named a 2012 Non-Fiction Book of the Year by the American Society of Journalists & Authors. If that’s not enough, People magazine gave it four stars. 🙂

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The Sharper Your Knife,The Less You Cry

In 2003, I was a thirty-six-year-old American living and working in London, when I returned from vacation to find that my corporate job had been eliminated. Ignoring my mother’s advice that I get another job immediately or “never get hired anywhere ever again,” instead I cleared out my savings and moved to Paris to pursue a dream-a diploma from the famed Le Cordon Bleu.

Here’s what Publishers Weekly said: “The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is the touching and remarkably funny account of Flinn’s transformation as she moves through the school’s intense program and falls deeply in love along the way.” A New York Times bestseller, translated into seven languages worldwide (British English, Japanese, German, Dutch, Thai, plus a couple variations on simple and complex Chinese.)

BUY AT AMAZON
BUY AT BARNES & NOBLE
BUY AT INDIE BOUND
BUY A SIGNED HARDCOVER
BUY A SIGNED PAPERBACK