Adeline Olmer
- Oct 20, 2021
- 2 min read

Discovering that my book can really teach you how to cook—

Updated: Jun 7, 2022

The job of editing is hard. It isn’t a task I’m good at. So, I had Betsy, my editor, scour through the book many times to find all the errors. She did a great job, especially since cooking isn’t her forte. She would email me with the question, “What does that mean?” It seemed obvious to me, but not to someone who is not a cook. She was the perfect editor.

I still needed a fresh eye to spot the errors that were well hidden between the words. My solution was to ask my husband to read my book from cover to cover. Reading the book for the first time, his eyes were able to spot those elusive misses.

When I met Mark, he cooked with a recipe, reading every word, and followed exactly what it instructed. He would check the clock to make certain he followed the directions to the minute. Over the years he has gotten more confident and more flexible when following a recipe but still is somewhat unsure when attempting something new.

A few weeks after Mark went through every page of Le Kitchen Cookbook: a Workbook, I noticed that his cooking had changed. Chicken breasts were now accompanied with a delicious sauce, vegetables had a tang that was different than usual. There was no recipe in front of him he was just mixing, tasting, and adjusting.

After a week or so I said, “Wow your cooking has really changed. You never made sauces before. This is delicious! What happened?”

He smiled and replied, “I read your cookbook.”

I knew the book I’d written could teach you to cook. But to actually taste the results was amazing. Simply by reading every page of the book Mark’s cooking had changed and become really good.

And on the other extreme, a few weeks ago I heard from Betsy, whose M.O. is “No Directions,” that she’d made horrible potato leek soup. It was so bad she went to my cookbook to find out what she’d done wrong. The result: the next batch was fantastic. She still will probably not follow directions, but now she has a place to find out what she should have done, which will make her remember it for next time.

If you want to learn to cook or become a better cook this is the book for you. Read it and cook your way through it. I promise you’ll be thrilled with the results.