{"id":3562,"date":"2014-12-01T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T13:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3562"},"modified":"2015-01-04T06:31:47","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T11:31:47","slug":"blood-bones-butter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3562","title":{"rendered":"***Blood, Bones & Butter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gabrielle<\/a>

(photo: author)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Gabrielle Hamilton<\/strong> \u2013 An engaging memoir that chronicles the author\u2019s intense relationship with food, from her upbringing with a French mother and artist\/set designer father, her falsifying her age to work in New Jersey kitchens starting at age 14, her drug-riddled stints as a bar waitress and catering kitchen dynamo, to the opening of her own restaurant in the East Village. That restaurant became the mini-phenomenon known as Prune<\/a>, helped bring home-style cooking into vogue. In 2011, Hamilton received the James Beard award as New York City\u2019s best chef.<\/p>\n

The book describes Hamilton\u2019s difficult relations with her mother and husband, but it\u2019s never clear what the source of these difficulties is, why the relationships deteriorated as they did, or, rather, why she let them drift. Her essential alone-ness appears to be the strongest strain in her character.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed this book\u2019s lack of typical foodie descriptions, though it is over-the-top in its own way, determined not to, ahem, sugar-coat kitchen proceedings. She\u2019s a compelling writer, with an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, and winner of the James Beard book award for writing and literature in 2012. Power on the page gets you past some of the unsavory spots, and it was well received<\/a>. Legendary chef Anthony Bourdain calls the book \u201csimply the best memoir by a chef ever.\u201d
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