“Dazzling . . . brilliantly written . . . [Hamilton] is as evocative writing about people and places as she is at writing about cooking.”

— Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times on Blood, Bones & Butter

Blood, Bones & Butter

ISBN: 9780812980882


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Blood, Bones & Butter

The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef


by Gabrielle Hamilton


Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. 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; 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 prickly marriage that nonetheless yields lasting dividends. By turns epic and intimate, Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion.