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

Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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.

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Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2011: Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, is just what a chef’s story should be–delectable, dripping with flavor, tinged with adrenaline and years of too-little sleep. What sets Hamilton apart, though, is her ability to write with as much grace as vitriol, a distinct tenderness marbling her meaty story. Hamilton spent her idyllic childhood on a wild farm in rural Pennsylvania with an exhilarant father–an artist and set builder–and French mother, both “incredibly special and outrageously handsome.” As she entered her teens, however, her family unexpectedly dissolved. She moved to New York City at 16, living off loose change and eating ketchup packets from McDonald’s; worked 20-hour days at a soulless catering company; traveled, often half-starved, through Europe; and cooked for allergy-riddled children at a summer camp. The constant thread running through this patchwork tale, which culminates with the opening of her New York City restaurant, Prune, is Hamilton’s slow simmering passion for cooking and the comfort it can bring. “To be picked up and fed, often by strangers, when you are in that state of fear and hunger, became the single most important food experience I came back to over and over,” Hamilton writes, and it’s this poignant understanding of the link between food and kindness that makes Blood, Bones & Butter so satisfying to read. –Lynette Mong

Guest Reviewer: Anthony Bourdain on Blood, Bones, and Butter

Anthony Bourdain is the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, in addition to the bestseller Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour. His work has appeared in the New York Times and The New Yorker, and he is a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine. He is also the host of the Emmy Award-winning television show No Reservations.

Very quickly after meeting Gabrielle Hamilton, I understood why she was a terrific and much-admired chef. I knew that her restaurant, Prune, was ground-breaking, that she seemed to have come out of nowhere, instead of being a product of the “system” (she’d emerged from the invisible subculture of catering), to open one of the most quirky, totally uncompromising, and quickly-embraced restaurants in New York City. Her purportedly (but not really) Franco-phobic menus were intensely, notoriously personal, her early embrace of the nose-to-tail attitude was way, way ahead the times, and chefs–all chefs–seemed to like and respect her. Almost as quickly, it became apparent that this chef could write.

Short pieces appeared here and there over the years and they were sharp, funny, incisive, unsparing of both author and subjects–straight to the point and pretense-free, like Hamilton herself. She could write really well. And she had, from all accounts, a story to tell. So when it was announced that Blood, Bones, and Butter was in the works, I was very excited.

It was a long wait.

Five years later, I finally got my hands on an advance copy and eagerly devoured it. It was of course brilliant. I expected it to be. But I wasn’t prepared for exactly how goddamn brilliant the thing was, or how enchanted, difficult, strange, rich, inspiring and just plain hard her life and career–her long road to Prune–had been. I was unprepared for page after page of such sharp, carefully-crafted, ballistically-precise sentences. I was, frankly, devastated. I put this amazing memoir down and wanted to crawl under the bed, retroactively withdraw every book, every page I’d ever written. And burn them.

Blood, Bones, and Butter is, quite simply, the far-and-away best chef or food-genre memoir…ever. EVER. It certainly kicked the hell out of my Kitchen Confidential, which suddenly, in a second, felt shallow, sophomoric and ultimately lightweight next to this…this monster of a book, this–at times–truly hardscrabble life…Blood, Bones, and Butter is deeper, better written, more hardcore, more fully fleshed-out; a more well-rounded story than every sunflower-and-saffron account of soft-core food porn in France. It’s as bullshit and pretense-free as AJ Leibling–and at least as well written, but more poignant, romantic–even thrilling.

It makes any “as told to” account of famous chef’s lives look instantly ludicrous and bloodless. I’ve struggled to think of somebody/anybody who’s written a better account of the journey to chefdom and can’t think of anyone who’s come even close.

Writing a memoir of one’s life as a chef–or even writing about one’s relationship with food–has, with the publication of this book, become much more difficult. Hamilton has raised the bar higher than most of us could ever hope to reach. This book will sell a gazillion copies. It will be a bestseller. It will be an enduring classic. It will inspire generation after generation of young cooks, and anyone who really loves food and understands the context in which it is best enjoyed, NOT as some isolated, over-valued object of desire, but as only one important aspect of a larger, richer spectrum of experiences. Each plate of food–like the menu at Prune–is the end result of a long and sometimes very difficult struggle.

Read this book and prepare to clean your system of all that’s come before. It’s a game-changer and a truly great work by a great writer and great chef.

中文：

书名：血、骨和黄油：一个不情愿的厨师的无意教育

《纽约时报》 BESTSELLER

在加布里埃尔·汉密尔顿开设广受好评的纽约餐厅Prune之前，她花了20年艰苦的生活试图找到自己生活中的目标和意义。 Blood, Bones & Butter 以下是汉密尔顿多年来居住过的许多厨房的非传统旅程：她童年的乡村厨房，她受人爱戴的母亲站在六口炉子旁边，手里拿着一个油乎乎的木勺；法国、希腊和土耳其的厨房，在那里她经常由完全陌生的人喂食，并学到了好客的本质；汉密尔顿在Prune自己的厨房，面临着许多意想不到的挑战；以及她意大利婆婆的厨房，她是连接汉密尔顿田园般的过去和她未来家庭的纽带–这是一段棘手的婚姻的结果，但却带来了持久的红利。加布里埃尔·汉密尔顿的故事时而史诗，时而亲切，以不同寻常的诚实、坚韧、幽默和激情讲述。

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亚马逊年度最佳图书，2011年3月：加布里埃尔·汉密尔顿的回忆录， 血、骨和奶油：一个不情愿的厨师的无意教育，这正是一个厨师的故事应该是可口的，浑身是味道，夹杂着肾上腺素和多年的睡眠不足。然而，汉密尔顿的不同之处在于她写作时既优雅又刻薄的能力，一种独特的柔情大理石镶嵌在她丰满的故事中。汉密尔顿在宾夕法尼亚州乡村的一个田园里度过了她的田园诗般的童年，父亲是一名艺术家和布景建造者，母亲是法国人，两人都非常特别，也非常英俊。然而，当她进入十几岁时，她的家庭出人意料地解散了。16岁时，她搬到了纽约市，靠零钱生活，吃麦当劳的番茄酱包装；在一家没有灵魂的餐饮公司每天工作20个小时；在欧洲各地旅行，经常是饿坏了；在夏令营为过敏儿童做饭。贯穿这个拼凑而成的故事的始终是汉密尔顿对烹饪及其带来的舒适的缓慢酝酿的热情，最终以她在纽约的餐厅Prune的开业为高潮。汉密尔顿写道，当你处于恐惧和饥饿的状态时，经常被陌生人捡起来喂食，成为我一次又一次回忆起的最重要的食物经历，正是这种对食物和善良之间联系的辛酸理解使 Blood, Bones & Butter so satisfying to read. #8221;Lynette希望

客座评论家：安东尼·波登 Blood, Bones, 和 Butter

Anthony Bourdain is the author of the novels 喉咙里的骨头 和 消失的竹子，除了畅销书之外 厨房机密 和 厨师之旅。 His work has appeared in the 纽约时报 和 纽约客，他是以下方面的贡献权威 Food Arts 杂志。他也是艾美奖获奖电视节目的主持人 没有预订。

在见到加布里埃尔·汉密尔顿后，我很快就明白了为什么她是一位令人惊叹和备受尊敬的厨师。我知道她的餐厅Prune是开创性的，她似乎不知从哪里冒出来的，而不是从餐饮业无形的亚文化中脱颖而出的体系的产物，开设了纽约市最古怪、完全不妥协、很快就被接受的餐厅之一。她据称(但不是真的)的法国恐惧症菜单非常个人化，她早期对从头到尾的态度的接受远远领先于时代，所有的厨师似乎都喜欢和尊重她。几乎同样快的是，这位厨师显然会写东西。

这些年来，短篇作品随处可见，它们犀利、有趣、犀利，对作者和主题都毫不留情，直截了当，没有任何伪装，就像汉密尔顿自己一样。她写得真的很好。从所有人的描述来看，她都有一个故事要讲。所以当宣布的时候 Blood, Bones, 和 Butter 正在筹备中时，我非常兴奋。

这是一个漫长的等待。

五年后，我终于拿到了一本预览版，并如饥似渴地读完了。当然，这是非常精彩的。我料到会是这样。但我没有准备好这件事到底有多么辉煌，也没有准备好她的生活和事业是多么令人着迷、困难、奇怪、富有、鼓舞人心和艰辛。我没有准备好一页又一页地阅读这样犀利、精心制作、弹道般的精确句子。坦率地说，我悲痛欲绝。我放下了这本令人惊叹的回忆录，想要爬到床下，回溯到我曾经写过的每一本书，每一页。然后把它们烧了。

Blood, Bones, 和 Butter 很简单，这是有史以来最好的厨师或美食体裁回忆录。永远不会。它肯定把我的地狱踢得落花流水 厨房机密，突然间，在这本书的旁边，它突然感觉到肤浅、二年级和最终的轻量级，这本书的怪物，这有时真的很艰难的生活…Blood, Bones, 和 Butter 是一个更深刻、更好写、更硬、更充实的故事；比起法国所有关于软核食物色情的向日葵和藏红花的描述，这个故事更全面。它和AJ·莱布林一样胡扯，没有伪装，至少写得一样好，但更辛酸，更浪漫，甚至令人兴奋。

这让任何讲述名厨生活的人都会立刻觉得滑稽可笑、冷酷无情。我一直很难想出有人/任何人能更好地描述成为厨师的历程，而又想不出有谁能接近这一点。

随着这本书的出版，写一本关于一个人作为厨师的生活的回忆录，甚至写一个人与食物的关系，已经变得困难得多。汉密尔顿把门槛提高到了我们大多数人都无法企及的高度。这本书会卖出无数册。这本书将成为畅销书。这将是一部经久不衰的经典。它将激励一代又一代的年轻厨师，以及任何真正热爱食物并了解最佳享受环境的人，不是作为孤立的、被高估的欲望对象，而是作为更广泛、更丰富的体验的一个重要方面。每一盘食物，就像Prune&8211；的菜单一样，都是长期的、有时是非常困难的斗争的最终结果。

读一读这本书，准备好清理你的系统中所有以前出现的东西。这是一部改变游戏规则的作品，也是一位伟大作家和伟大厨师的杰作。