Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
Random House • $26 • ISBN 9781400068722
March 1, 2011
How’s this for a recommendation:
“Magnificent. Simply the best memoir by a chef ever. Ever. Gabrielle Hamilton packs more heart, soul and pure power into one beautifully crafted page than I’ve accomplished in my entire writing career. Blood, Bones, and Butter is the work of an uncompromising chef and a prodigiously talented writer. I am choked with envy.” The writer of this blurb? None other than Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential, A Cook’s Tour and Medium Raw.
Unless you’re familiar with New York restaurants, you may not have ever heard of Gabrielle Hamilton. She is the chef of Prune in Manhattan’s East Village, and she has also written a chef’s column in the New York Times. Blood, Bones and Butter tells the story of her upbringing (father was a set designer; mother was French) and path to opening a successful restaurant.
Though the memoir gives a behind-the-scenes view of the restaurant industry (some dirt included), the real treat is Hamilton’s evocotive writing. Here’s a sample from an opening scene, when the author and her siblings sleep outdoors the night before her family’s lamb roast:
I quietly thrilled to be packed into my sleeping bag right up next to them. I felt cocooned by the thick crescendoing song of the crickets, that voluptuous blanket of summer night humidity, the smell of wood smoke, the heavy dew of the tall grass around us, the necessary and anchoring voices, giggles, farts, and squeals of disgust of my older siblings. This whole perfect night when everyone is still, pretty much, intact and wholesome, is where I sometimes want the party to stop.
In the morning the sun will come up and the rest of life will resume–where it will become cliche to admire the beauty of the stars, facile to feel transported by the smell of wood smoke, childish to admit to loving your siblings, and weak to be made secure by the idea of your parents still married up in the house–and we will awaken and kick out of our sleeping bags and find in the pit a huge bed of glowing coals, perfect for the slow roasting of the lambs.
Sound like something you’d like to read more of?
What are you reading today?
The Help by Katherine Stockett. What a wonderful book, so glad a friend recommended it.
Glad you like it! THE HELP was voted the #1 favorite book of 2009 by BookPage readers.
The Family Man by E Lipman
Reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger.
I’m also reading Her Fearful Symmetry. Very different than my usual reads!!
The Blasphemer by Nigel Farndale.
reading The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
Ooh, that sounds fantastic. I’m going to see if it’s in my library’s listings yet.
‘More Than Words’ Volume 4 (original short stories inspired by real-life heroines)
Just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Loved it. We did it for book discussion last night, the book and the discussion was terrific. Tops on my list of being one of the best books I have read this year. I highly recommend it.
Reading two, John Grishams’ The Confession, I have read most of his legal books. Also reading Michelle Norris’s memoir, The Grace of Silence, a wonderful read.
Big Machine by Victor LaValle
Catching Genius by Kristy Kiernan
I’m a seasonal reader, so I’m reading The First Love Cookie Club by Lori Wilde. Tis the Season!!
I’m like Celeste, enjoying a seasonal read. An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor.After the new year, I’ll have to find his other books.Love the setting.
In Plain Sight by C.J. Box. I’ve never read any of his books….good mystery so far.