I can’t remember how I heard about The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry first; I think I bumped into on Amazon where it was listed as one of the books customers bought along with the one I was looking at. When I found out that this story has Le Cordon Bleu as the main focus, I was overjoyed! I ordered a copy immediately.
The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry is a lovely memoir of Kathleen Flinn who pursued her long standing dream of studying at the world’s finest culinary school. Once she was fired, her boyfriend encouraged her to follow to go to Paris and said, “Do you want to be on your deathbed, wondering why you never went?” 24 days later, she was at Le Cordon Bleu.
The book chronicles her way though cooking school with a little bit of life thrown in (though I would have loved to read more about what goes on in the kitchen). Through the book you will have gone to Paris and back.
Inspiring, riveting and emotional – I couldn’t keep the book down (even while climbing the stairs to my office!) I loved it so much – I want to give a new copy of this book to one of you!
There are a whole bunch of recipes in this book, but French haute cuisine is not for me (just yet :)). However, I did make the Banana and Nutella Crepes from this book.
Banana and Nutella Crepes
Yield: 8 crepes
Recipe source: The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry
For the crepe batter
¾ cup / 80g all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup / 250 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 tbsp butter, melted
Filling for the crepe:
Thinly sliced bananas
Nutella (the proportion of this can never be defined – dollop them on the crepes to your hearts content.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl, making a well in the centre.
- In a Pyrex jug or another bowl, mix together the milk and the vanilla.
- Add a third of the milk mixture and the eggs to the well, slowly incorporating in the flour.
- Whisk in the remaining milk and melted butter.
- Allow it to rest for 30 minutes.
- Heat a non-stick pan on a low-medium heat and dab or brush it with a little butter. (However, if yours is a newer non-stick it will be fine so you don’t worry about it sticking to it too much.)
- Scoop about ¼ of the batter and pour it on the heated pan, making sure it is not too hot.
- Tilt the pan to evenly cover with the batter.
- The crepe is ready to flip once the edges are slightly browned. Stack them up.
- Now with each crepe, spread some Nutella on it and line with slice bananas. Have it the no-fuss way by rolling it up or simply fold it over like an omlette and serve. YUM!
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The giveaway is open to local and international readers until the 25th of July, 2009.