Blood, Bones & Butter

Selected by Amazon as one of the best books of the year so far, Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef is more than just a food memoir by New York City restaurant owner/chef Gabrielle Hamilton. At the start, Hamilton shares her idyllic childhood growing up in rural Pennsylvania with a creative father and French mother who threw lavish parties for family, friends, and neighbors. However, her parents divorce left Hamilton to fend for herself just as she entered her teenage years. She takes various odd jobs, waitresses, spends time abroad, cooks for a summer camp and spends years freelance catering before becoming the owner of her restaurant, Prune, which is something she seemed to fall into unexpectedly.

Also unexpectedly, she finds herself married to an Italian man she met while working at Prune and with whom she has two sons and a yearly month-long visit to his family in Italy. Far from a conventional relationship, Hamilton does not discuss much about her marriage, and I found myself wondering more about the situation. Overall I enjoyed the passion, and frankness with which Hamilton writes, especially when she writes about her vision for Prune. It was especially enjoyable because I listened to this book (downloaded for free from Overdrive!), and Hamilton reads it herself.