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The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Random House
March 2011
On Sale: March 1, 2011
304 pages
ISBN: 140006872X
EAN: 9781400068722
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir | Non-Fiction Cooking / Food
aβI 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 βconceptualβ or βintellectualβ 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.β
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. Hamiltonβs 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; Hamiltonβs own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamiltonβs idyllic past and her own future familyβthe result of a difficult and prickly marriage that nonetheless yields rich and lasting dividends. Blood, Bones & Butter is an unflinching and lyrical work. Gabrielle Hamiltonβs story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. By turns epic and intimate, it marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - July 29, 2011
NPR Books - July 28, 2011
Charlie Rose - April 15, 2011
Weekend Edition Saturday - March 19, 2011
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