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, Flinn 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 soufflés and foie...