Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton - Wait list

Blood, Bones & Butter

The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

by Gabrielle Hamilton
Gabrielle Hamilton
Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: Not available
Place a hold Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: Not available
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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 1, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415943755
      • File size: 290425 KB
      • Duration: 10:05:03

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Famed chef Gabrielle Hamilton's memoir glows with sincerity. Her story reveals the path that led her to create Prune, a revered New York City restaurant known for comfort food prepared to gourmet standards. As narrator, Hamilton perhaps understates the wild, courageous, and complex roots of her own life. After the breakup of her family, she had a brief bout of juvenile delinquency, followed by a few unmoored years of poverty as she roamed around Europe. A major part of her story is her accounts of the sacrifices and toil involved in opening a fledgling restaurant in Manhattan. She speaks steadily, firmly, and unemotionally. Her dry wit underscores her full life as it unfolds, and her passion for her artistry is crafted in high relief. The Culinary Institute of America, as well as famed chefs far and wide, recognizes Hamilton's expertise as an accomplished chef, and her memoir now captures high praise for her mastery of words. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 28, 2011
      Chef and restaurateur Hamilton, chef/owner of the acclaimed New York City restaurant Prune, offers a sensuous and evocative memoir of her rural Pennsylvania childhood and her training as writer and chef. The youngest of five children raised by a glamorous French former ballerina and a theater set designer, Hamilton grew up petted and unsupervised, free to roam with packs of neighborhood children who wore, according to the season, "mud suits or snowsuits." Hamilton's account is studded with precise observations made in felicitous prose that brings her "wild castle" of a home to life, as well as her lost years after her parents' divorce. Unfortunately, Hamilton is a poor reader of her own material. Her voice is monotone and scarcely strains to communicate drama. There's a reserve and coldness that does not melt away, a listlessness at odds with the intelligence and energy of the prose, the warmth of her humor, and her lush descriptions. A Random hardcover.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading