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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Miami Herald • Newsday • The Huffington Post • Financial Times • GQ • Slate • Men's Journal • Washington Examiner • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • National Post • The Toronto Star • BookPage • Bookreporter

"I wanted the lettuce and eggs at room temperature . . . the butter-and-sugar sandwiches we ate after school for snack . . . the marrow bones my mother made us eat as kids that I grew to crave as an adult. . . . There would be no 'conceptual' or 'intellectual' food, just the salty, sweet, starchy, brothy, crispy things that one craves when one is actually hungry. In ecstatic farewell to my years of corporate catering, we would never serve anything but a martini in a martini glass. Preferably gin."

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton's ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became as necessary to her as her own skin.

Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; the soulless catering factories that helped pay the rent; Hamilton's own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton's idyllic past and her own future family-the result of a difficult and prickly marriage that nonetheless yields rich and lasting dividends.

Blood, Bones & Butter is an unflinching and lyrical work. Gabrielle Hamilton's story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. By turns epic and intimate, it marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 1, 2011
ISBN9781415943748
Unavailable
Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

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Reviews for Blood, Bones & Butter

Rating: 3.7270318219081267 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

566 ratings76 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Ugh. If you are looking for a book that talks somewhat about food and a lot about griping/complaining about all of the parts of the author's life outside of the kitchen, then this book is for you. I would have stopped this book, but I have a unrelenting obsession about never quitting a book that I've started. Ms. Hamilton, when actually writing about food is a fabulous writer. Her passion for it is incredibly evident. The problem it gets lost in all her grousing about her life and the world that is happening around her. She is great at pointing out flaws in everyone around her, but rarely turns the mirror to herself. And when she does she blows it off like her issues are excusable while the problems of others are inexcusable. Like a mountain of dishes, this was just a chore for me to finish.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Take The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls; Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain; Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes; and Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl (and her other memoirs, too) and roll them into one and you’ll have Blood, Bones & Butter, with the author’s dysfunctional family and issues that go unresolved into adulthood; too many wild, late nights in restaurants and manic cooking jags; summer meals in a crumbling villa in Italy; and plenty of meals and menu descriptions all the way through. The author’s passion and love of food really comes through, but not in an over-dramatized way. There isn’t any gushing or ecstatic renditions of meals eaten. The preparation of good food seems to be what calms the author’s driven spirit, making her years of hard work in kitchens seem in retrospect like a labor of love.Read my full review of the audiobook edition read by the author on Bay State Reader's Advisory blog.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I loved the parts about food and childhood and setting up her restaurant, but cringed at her bad relationships and marriage. I usually have trouble with the narcissism of memoirs and by the end, it had started to overshadow the good parts.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    For some reason I like to read books by professional cooks, which is weird because I don't particularly like to spend time in the kitchen. I liked this book quite a bit, with one exception that weighed strongly in my rating. The author comes across as very bold and sure of herself. A risk taker. A doer. Yet she ends up in a very puzzling marriage, and it seems inconsistent with everything else about her life.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really liked the first section, "Blood", which is the story of the author's young childhood. I would teach that section as a mini-memoir on its own. The description is almost lyrical. The section section, "Bones", I would take in sections and would teach that way. I skimmed the third section, "Butter". I got bored with the story of the author's married life. The main reason is that through the whole book, she's a lesbian, which she barely mentions except in passing, and then suddenly she's married to a man. And it's a Green card marriage. And she has kids. And they don't live together. And this whole relationship is just too New York for me. And she never explains what happens to being a lesbian all of a sudden. It's not cool; it's boring. I was most interested in her getting back to the story of her mother.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An interesting and enjoyable read. I had no expectations going into this book, knowing neither the author nor having read anything about her or her past. Simply put, I was seeking gastroliterature and my only scepticism was whether this would be another disguised cookbook, or a self-mastubatory celebration of the author's career and exploits ... it wasn't. In fact, it turns ouyt to be a wonderful view of an individual and her progression through life via a set of windows. The writing has a clear voice and slightly verbose style that is nonetheless quite engaging. Her portrayal of her life, her career, and her family are unapologetically from her own perspective and without too much of that romanticism rife in most memoir writing ... though the last third of the book does tend towards indulging in towards this goal, though it is balanced with the harshness of her own self-realisations. This is definitively a memoir, and a well written one, but her mastery of the voice offers glimpses into the many different worlds of cooking - the home kitchen, the parties, the commercial kitchens, the catering world, the restaurant and back at home again. Throughout the work, she manages to simultaneously offer a running history of her life, her evolving dialogue with food and her process and methodologies. In fact, she manages to provide so much detail in regards to her practices of her crazy work ethic, inclusive of the meditative trances, that it just comes across as inspirational and, dare I say, even sexy.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sigh, I loved this book. Not to be snotty but I feel like if you are an industry person you will appreciate her life so much more. Some say she is crass but, that's how chefs are! That's how they need to be, especially in New York. She didn't sugar coat her life or her upbringing, and I have so much respect for that. She worked really hard and put in the hours to become who she is, and success found her. I've often wondered if I would meet my Michele, and have those summers that she did, I sort of hope I do. Bravo Gabrielle for an honest and detailed history of your life and for such a delicious story that had me nodding and smiling often.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The subtitle of Blood, Bone & Butter is "The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef." It should have been "The Incidental Education of an Insufferable Chef." I get it: cooks are crazy. Everyone knows this. And Gabrielle Hamilton, the author of this book, is no exception. She had a neglectful upbringing, found out that she could work in kitchens even if it wasn't what she really wanted to do, and spent time in NY getting in all kinds of trouble, like many restaurant workers do. Then she took a left turn and decided she wanted to do something more "important" and went and got an MFA in creative writing, and then ended up back in the restaurant business. This sounds kind of interesting, but this lady -- oh, this lady. She is a piece of work. I don't mind, or even prefer, a memoir that isn't strictly about the work. What else goes on in our lives often has a lot to do with how we end up where we are, so I am perfectly fine with personal life mixed in liberally. But when I finish the book and I'm not even sure what her successful New York restaurant is like, aside from small and that it serves brunch, I don't think it's a really successful book about a restaurateur. Instead, here's what I know about Gabrielle Hamilton: she hates women who shop at farmer's markets. She had lesbian relationships until she married an Italian guy. She is terrible at relationships - she had an affair with said Italian guy while dating a woman, who she broke up with by informing her she was getting married. She married the Italian so he could get a green card. (Although ultimately who is in that marriage for more than that, and who is most disappointed by the whole thing, and who is more at fault and why are we still talking about it is all up for debate.) She thinks people who let their kids cry it out are miserable excuses for human beings, but she will yell "things I'm not proud of" at her fussy toddlers in the car when she's hungry. She is a chef, but cannot correctly pronounce "turmeric" or "pho." She also has a habit of pronouncing "a" like "ay," including at the beginning of the word "another," so that I felt like she was reading to a particularly slow 4-year-old. I mean really - who says "ay" person and then "ay"nother?!I suppose the bottom line is, I did not like this woman, and I felt like the book focused on all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. I wish she had stuck to cooking and skipped the MFA.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A beautiful and searingly honest memoir about a life very fully lived. Hamilton does not appear to be a particularly nice person, but nice is not the be all and end all. She is certainly not one who looks to build bridges, and while I definitely would not want to be her partner (in love or business) her uncompromising approach to all things makes for a great narrator with a sharp and compelling point of view. And the way she writes about food, and about Italy, is as gorgeous and evocative as any writer I can name. I struggled between a 4 and a 5 star on this one, and erred on the 4 star side because I would have liked a bit more discussion of food, and of Prune, and perhaps a little less discussion of her husband's faults, but overall a very worthy memoir.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Easily the best restaurant memoir I've read yet.

    Gabrielle had an odd upbringing with a casual artistic father and a French ex-ballerina for a mother. They raised their large brood in a farmhouse far from any city, raising and making most of their food. After the divorce, Gabrielle was left largely on her own, and she quickly turned to cooking and waiting tables to make ends meet. She developed a serious coke habit in the 80s (surprise!) but since she was only 17 when she hit rock-bottom, she managed to get her life together and eventually not only completed college, but got an MFA. By her early thirties, she opened her own restaurant in NYC (Prune), green-card-married an Italian doctor (the set-up of yet another Harlequin romance novel), and had sons.

    Fantastic, earthy writing, and descriptions of food that felt like her real reflections, not shoe-horned in because readers expect them. She rhapsodizes on everything from egg sandwiches from a street cart to handrolling pasta with her in-laws, and it all feels equally important. I felt a little uncomfortable by her descriptions of her relationship with her husband (it's clearly a complicated marriage), but I was absolutely fascinated by her experiences, the way she talks about them, and the personality driving it all.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Note: I tried this one as an audiobook.

    I got most of the way through this one before just petering out. It wasn't even a conscious decision on my part to give up on it. I was listening to the audiobook every day, then I decided to listen to some music instead, and I never went back. I wasn't a fan of Hamilton's style, and while it was interesting for a little while, learning about French cooking just wasn't for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am surprised by how much I enjoyed this one because by the end I really couldn't stand the author.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A foodie book not just for foodies, Gabrielle Hamilton nails her memoir. Simply nails it. Her unconventional childhood, her subsequent untethered adolescence via divorce, her backpacking young adulthood, and hard labors in kitchens throughout New York City, Michigan, and back to NYC to open her own restaurant, finally circling back to an unconventional marriage and motherhood makes this memoir absolutely riveting. Her honest, raw, funny, and painful memories are always told with a sharp knife - there are no dull edges here - leaving us to wonder about our own paths taken and not taken. She is extraordinarily interesting, whether writing about her 20 year estrangement from her mother or writing about eggplants. I hope this isn't her last foray into writing: she's just too damn good. And when in NYC, procure a seat at her famed restaurant Prune in the East Village. Her passion for food and for conveying experiences into her honest, pure, and "salt-of-the-earth" menu are an experience not to be missed, I'm sure.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I saw the 4 stars rated for this book and thought I'd give it a shot - wow, I don't know what makes me so different but I really disliked this book. It is written decently in that all the sentences seem to make sense and, I'll admit, the candid nature and witticisms present in the first couple chapters made me think reading this was going to be a positive experience but... sheesh... this author should be on one of those lists like "the worlds most intolerable, obtuse, unsympathetic, one dimensional people". Totally unaware of her privilege (like, for example, being able to call a rich brother who ponies up an expensive lawyer to get her out of a legal jamb) she lashes out at some... many.?.. most(?) other people in the world. Writing grad students? forget it, they're all pompous and trite, NOT LIKE HER, other women chefs? they're all about doing the least amount of work to become rich and famous NOT LIKE HER (who somehow feels that stealing and taking advantage of people is part of "hard work"). I just found this book and, in particular, the tone of the book, particularly slimy and mean-spirited. I'm so confused... what are the 4-star ratings for?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If you can get past the swearing and morbid descriptions, it is interesting how she became a chef.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The book was good and I almost liked it, but the frustration and hate she felt toward her mother was a bit too much for me.

    I appreciate the woman as a chef, I appreciate her achievements in the food industry but I dislike her attitude toward life in general and her general state of mind.

    There are successful people in this world that went through a lot more than she did and aren't that bitter, full of hate or frustration incarnate. They are actually grateful for their life and full of positivity.

    Maby this could have been a great a book.
    But it's not.
    It's supposed to be inspiring, but it's not.

    She tries so hard to appear confident, practical and creative... But she's not. She's frustrated as fuck.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Truly loved Gabrielle Hamilton's poignant story of the struggles that have shaped her life and made her a highly acclaimed chef. Impressed by her unflinching retelling of the bad as well as the good. This book is not only the story of a chef, but the amazing story of a woman making life better for herself and her own.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A writer, a master chef and a mother. Gabrielle Hamilton has seen and done so much in her life, making her one very interesting person. I was fascinated and intrigued with her path, rocky bumpy and riddled with broken bits. She took those bits and twisted and diced them into a wonderful future. I found myself just liking this strong genuine women.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A memoir which explores hunger and the context which makes eating a pleasure. A beautifully written and intricate story of one woman's love affair with food and family.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A really good combination of great writing and cooking inspiration.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I really feel like the first third of this book was bad. It almost ruined the whole book. After it stops making paragraph long sentences about her childhood, and gets into the meat of her adult experiences it really gets good. I love how she frankly describes her wants and feelings with her life and relationships, in the last 2/3 of the book. She also gives a realistic account of what it's like to work in a kitchen, and do so at a professional level and volume. Would recommend, though with the caveat about the beginning.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This one took a while for me to get into it, although I liked it quite well once I did. The author is very angry, and while that feels very authentic and refreshing (as an angry person, I can relate), it also feels like the book is more about the swinging emotional temperature than it is about food or cooking. I can also strongly relate to Hamilton's ambivalence about her role as a female chef in a male-dominated career -- the push and pull of wanting people just to do the thing and recognize you for being great at the thing without gender qualifiers, but also the need for representation. It's funny, I really liked this book -- I liked the rawness, the unflinching hard work and the high standard that she holds herself to, but I also question writing it right before an impending divorce (? seems probable) -- because it left me all wrapped up in angry, frustrated marriage feelings when what I wanted more of was the food.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The first part of the book is a wonderful, lyrical tale of her childhood. However, the second half of the book disintegrates into a self-centered take on the disintegration of her marriage. Her attacks against her husband, mother, and most people around her lacks any self-reflection...it comes across as snooty and mean.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Book on CD read by the authorFrom the book jacket: Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. … Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became as necessary to her as her own skin. My reactionsI’ll say this for Hamilton – she can definitely write. I was fascinated by the stories of her upbringing, and her “wild-child” phase. I was interested in (and horrified by) her journey through the bars and joints of New York, and her multiple attempts at college. I laughed, cheered and gasped at the anecdotes of her years working for the big catering companies, and the summer camp. But she kind of lost me when she got to her marriage. She is open about marrying so that her husband – an Italian physician – could secure his Green Card, but then she seems to also demand that he be the idyllic spouse. They keep separate apartments and she’s angry that he’s not “there for her” more. On the other hand, she has a great relationship with her mother-in-law.But what really shines in this memoir is her relationship with food. I relished in the descriptions of both simple (vegetables and cheese for lunch) and elegantly complicated meals. Hamilton narrates the audiobook herself, and she does a very fine job.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "As best as we could, using the butter-yellow melamine plates, we artfully arranged soppressata, Alphonse olives, hard cheeses, and bread that had crust and body – that could actually hurt the roof of your mouth if you were accustomed. We fried fatty, bony duck wings and coated them in toasted sesame seeds. We untangled mounds of curly bitter endive and tamed it with pear and walnuts and vinegar with bacon fat."

    As I made my way through this book, I kept thinking: man, this book and her life are imbued, suffused, just completely infused with food. And my other thought: good god, what a life she had led. Being left on her own (accidentally?) as a kid and taking on a job at a restaurant (and hijacking cars in workshops to get to said job) to make money, essentially her first and very young foray into the culinary universe. Working as an underaged waitress at a bar. Doing coke and other drugs. Backpacking through Europe in winter with not very much money. Saying yes to owning a restaurant when she’s had no experience managing one (she’s had plenty of experience working as a catering chef but that’s a different ball game). Cooking for summer campers, including a young gourmand who’s father is a rather famous someone and some idiotic counselors who feel for the lobsters they’re going to consume anyway. Taking up an MFA in Michigan. Working the egg station at her restaurant while heavily pregnant and scheduling her childbirth when some members of her kitchen staff quit on her! This is a life boldly (perhaps sometimes a little foolishly?), led. And she puts all of it into her New York restaurant, Prune.

    "And I wanted to bring all of it, every last detail of it – the old goat herder smoking filterless cigarettes coming down the mountain, crushing oregano and wild mint underfoot; Iannis cooking me two fried eggs without even asking me if I cared for something to eat; that sweet creamy milk that the milk wallah in Delhi frothed by pouring in a long sweeping arc between two pots held as far apart as the full span on his arms from his cart decorated with a thousand fresh marigolds – into this tiny thirty-seat restaurant."

    This book shines with such a gorgeous, delicious lustre when Hamilton talks about food, about her mom’s teaching them to forage for food in their own backyard, about Andre Soltner of Lutèce making an omelette, about making oriecchette in Italy (she married an Italian who courted her with homemade ravioli), and even about freelancing at catering companies (which makes me so rethink ever eating catered food. Here’s a hint: you know those canapes on toasts? Those toasts probably have been sitting around in the kitchens for days and days.)

    "We’d tromp around in the mud and taunt the geese in the meadow who’d lower their necks and come at us hissing mad, try to spear fish in the stream, and pick the big black berries off the mulberry bushes near our mailbox while inside our mother would whistle along with the classical music station, stir pots of fragrant stews, and repose in her chair, howling out loud, a New Yorker open on her lap and a particular cartoon cutting her in half."

    But the bits about her family, especially her mother, are a little hard to swallow. There is so much angst and tension between the two of them that it very nearly pushes the reader away. But like that car wreck you pass on the highway, you just can’t tear your eyes from.

    Blood, Bones and Butter is full of life, full of passion. Her dedication to her work, to her restaurant, to her children, is unceasing. Her story, a little bittersweet, the narrative a bit confusing at times, but a very hearty, satisfying read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hamilton is the chef-owner Prune, one of New York City’s most celebrated restaurants. In this memoir, she describes her rough-and-tumble beginnings in the food industry and in life. She has a refreshingly off-beat perspective on love, family and the pursuit of pleasure. All of these things, along with her non-traditional career path, coalesce in her approach to food and eating. Be forewarned, Hamilton was no angel in her early years.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a very readable, well written food memoir. Gabrielle Hamilton has very strong opinions and I found her perspective to be quite entertaining and right on. For the first half of the book, I was completely smitten with every word and I didn't want it to end. But by the second half, she sort of veers off in a different direction, and the narrative weakens a bit, I thought. Still a great read, though. Refreshingly unsentimental.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Never google the author of a memoir if you want to have a bias-free reading experience. I googled Gabrielle Hamilton and throughout Blood, Bones, and Butter, whenever she mentioned her sister Melissa, I couldn't help wondering how Hamilton could betray someone who was there for her as much as Melissa was by having an affair with Melissa's husband. It colored my opinion of Hamilton as a person and I wish I'd never conducted that search.

    Blood, Bones, and Butter is prettily written, although the author does some confusing jumping around within her personal timeline and changes tenses in weird places a couple of times. She tells some gross anecdotes that in another voice would sound way too "HI I'M SUPPOSED TO BE SHOCKING!" but they don't read that way at all in this book -- they're just Hamilton discussing another bit of her life that happened to be pretty nasty.

    I really enjoyed reading about her dad's parties (Hamilton tells a good story, especially when it involves food) and her interesting and strange childhood, and how she climbed her way up to where she is today, but when the narrative got closer to the present, it became an angry little ode to bitterness.

    I mean, I get it, this is supposed to be unflinchingly honest and REAL, but it wasn't the same kind of honesty as in the first half of the book; it was tinged with cold anger, and the anger is never really EXPLAINED, which makes it hard for me to understand why, for example, Hamilton stays away from her mother for twenty years and then acts like a sullen teenager when she does visit her. There are glimpses of the root of her bitterness every now and then, but they're fleeting. Maybe I was supposed to read between the lines or something, but I'm never very good at that.

    On the plus side, it sounds like any affection that may have been displaced by anger has been transferred to food. Hamilton comes off as snobbish when it comes to food -- some of it's understandable, some of it's is the stuff eye rolls are made of -- but she also sounds like she knows her stuff, and she writes about food in a hungry-making way. I wouldn't want to live with her, but I'd love to eat her food.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Warning: this book will alternately make you hungry and make you want to throw up, sometimes on the same page. She certainly has a gift for sensory description!
    Gorgeous, gorgeous writing, but I think there was either too much or too little about her personal life, especially the part about her marriage.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5


    It's not that this wasn't a good and well written book, it just wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting more about her restaurant, Prune, but it was more about her life with a smaller emphasis on the food in her life.