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I really enjoyed the story-telling. While it is a lot about the restaurant industry, it is less so than other chef memoirs and focuses more on her family life.

These last two paragraphs remind me of my best friend's mother, a woman whose recipes we have tried in vain to obtain and understand.

I can never keep a dust cover on my books. Anyone else?

I was not familiar with chef Gabrielle Hamilton nor her eatery Prune but that just added an element of flavor to this juicy memoir. A very gritty look at the underbelly of becoming a chef, owning a restaurant, and trying to find the right outlet for her creativity & wanderlust. My one complaint... her time spent in Turkey was never described & therefore this doesn‘t count for #ReadingEurope2020😫 A bit uneven in parts but overall satisfying. 👇🏽

Started this on a whim last night and I‘m thoroughly engrossed in the author‘s colorful and unconventional story. As an added bonus look at her travel itinerary... #ReadingEurope2020

I‘m ALL over the place this week with my reads. Just started reading this foodie memoir. It‘s got a bit of The Glass Castle vibe, mixed with some Sex in the City and a dash of Coyote Ugly. In other words I‘m loving it❣️❣️❣️I think you might like this @KarenUK and it will hopefully cover #ReadingEurope2020 #Turkey #PoP20 #UpsideDownImageOnBookCover

I love behind-the-scenes books, and this did not disappoint.

Posted on the blog on 7/31, Gabrielle Hamilton‘s Celery Toasts for our virtual foodie book club‘s pick of her memoir, “Blood, Bones & Butter. I ate them 2-nights in a row for dinner & want to get cambazola blue cheese to make more.😋 Hamilton has the same pungent assertiveness as the garlic, lemon & blue cheese that too these buttery celery toasts—her book is honest, at times uneven, but very absorbing. Link to the NYTimes recipe & my thoughts👇🏻

Is it considered more hospitable to discover your guests‘ preferences, their likes and dislikes? Is it rude to deny your guests choice and control over their experience? I don‘t know, but I forever want to arrive somewhere hungry and thirsty and tired and be taken care of as Iannis took care of us.

In college, I had met the Southern writer Jo Carson and she said, “Be careful what you get good at doin‘ ‘cause you‘ll be doin‘ it for the rest of your life.”

It was kind of tremendous timing to hit adolescence just as the family was disintegrating. It's not too bad to live out your Pippi Longstocking fantasy right when you most seek independence from your parents and are practicing it so ardently.

1. Hmmm....I‘d say The Shawshank Redemption, probably.
2. My husband and I went to Positano before we were married and it was so beautiful.
3. I like chef/cooking memoirs.
4. Green and brown, colors of nature.
5. If you could only have one book for a year, what would it be?

#FriyayIntro

I loved this book! So much of Gabrielle‘s early years in restaurants are so familiar to me. She didn‘t glamorize it or romanticize it, which I loved. And, oh, the way she describes a meal. I was hungry the whole time.

This book pretty much demands to be read while eating a cheese board-but my pantry didn‘t have a lot of options tonight! 🙈Ah well, at least I have wine and can pretend to be fancy!

1. So, my husband is a manager at our local organic food co-op. I get a text about ten minutes from the time he is off asking what we need for dinner. I do a big shop about once a month 2. the local olive oil store sells this awesome siracha mango vinegar that is great all on its own. 3. Cook! 4. Nope 5. The tagged book was interesting, but I liked her cookbook more 😜

Yesterday after I finished Shiny Broken Pieces, I started Blood, Bones, and Butter. Today I finished it.

I start grad school in January, and the thought of losing so much leisure reading time has sent me into a frenzy of trying to get more books under my belt and off my TBR lists. So I'm off to the library website now for the next audiobook. Whatever it may be.

I‘m a total sucker for overblown writing about food and life and NYC and this was exactly up my alley.

Went for a hike today on North Table Mountain. This is my first fall in CO and I'm kind of amazed by the size and abundance of what I'm pretty sure is goldenrod.
I'm enjoying the tagged book, although I didn't listen to it while walking. Too risky with all the bikers on the trail.

Leg of lamb roasting, now time to read and do some 'homework' 😜

The prompt #cruelsummer reminded me of the part in this memoir where the author talked about the Summer after her parents' separation where both parents disappeared and forgot to care for her and her brother. #JuneTunz

Enjoying this audible while cooking today.

What a strange memoir. Beautifully written, but I was hoping for more about the food. We spent a lot of time on her strange marriage (?) and her being a mother, which is frankly less interesting to me.

This was an interesting book which ledt me thinking differently about the food I eat. The author has obviously led a complicated life with some complicated relationships but I felt that she sometimes over simplified her feelings for a punchline. A book that makes me eyeroll can only get a 3* rating max!

I can only show off the things I got for myself ;) Happy Independent Bookstore Day!!!

#MarchIntoReading I read this a few years ago and remember thinking it was well written but HATING the author. Anyone else ever encounter this while reading memoirs? #AlliterativeTitles

Planning my 2017 #litsyatoz from my #tbr pile. So excited for a fun, diverse year of reading!

One of my favorite memoirs ever. Gabrielle Hamilton narrated her book and she was fabulous.

My next audiobook is the food memoir Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton. I hope it's as good as Anthony Bourdain's blurb says it is. 😁

I love food and cooking and have admiration for anyone who can work through the grind of running a restaurant and give people great food. I found the story of chef Gabrielle Hamilton's life in food interesting and worth reading. She provides a pretty clear description of how hard the work is and why it's worth it (most days anyway).

So I came to possess, of all things, a husband. This didn't make any sense for the longest time, to anyone, myself included, but that was also before I had met his Italian mother.

This deliciously fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking memoir captivated me! I could not put this down.

I am a picky eater so I thought reading a food memoir for the #readharder challenge would be tough but I ended up enjoying this more than expected. The author seems bold and honest and doesn't sugarcoat her thoughts and experiences. The 'foodie' sections were kind of lost on me but the other aspects of her life more than made up for it.

😜 I'm not into astrology at all but this made me laugh because it's so true for me (and probably many of us!)

I'm really glad Hamilton narrated her own work because it gave me a better idea of her actual voice. There are points where she comes off as insufferable - teen who lies her way into a job, grad student who can't stand other grad students, chef-owner annoyed that no "good" restaurants are open for 4pm dinner on a Sunday - but insufferableness also imparts vulnerability. Hamilton has had a really fascinating journey to get to who she is now.

"[Our mother] knew how to serve mint tea and sliced oranges w onions and olives, if she was making a bisteeya, and never put a meal together in a careless, eclectic, or incoherent way. the meal was always organized correctly, traditionally, which I now appreciate, but as a kid, pigeon was not a treat, even if it was served w the traditional condiments."

Freakin amazing book. If Hamilton cooks half as good as she writes Prune must be a mesmerizing dining experience.

I would never have thought to pick this book up, but it was gifted to me by someone who loves it, and then I started it and couldn't put it down. It's a complicated, unfinished, angry, loving memoir by a woman who cares as much about how she builds a sentence as she does a dish, and that is saying something.

I would never have thought to pick this book up, but it was gifted to me by someone who loves it, and then I started it and couldn't put it down. It's a complicated, unfinished, angry, loving memoir by a woman who cares as much about how she builds a sentence as she does a dish, and that is saying something.

Lots of parts were fascinating, other parts were repetitious. Not a smooth narrative because of timeline issues; more like a series of essays. Enjoyed it overall, but it ended kind of abruptly for me.

I just finished listening to this on audiobook and I'm glad I chose that format. Hamilton's narration made her well-developed prose even more personal. While our lives are quite different, we share similar challenges. I feel like I read this at the perfect time in my life.

I liked her writing, but couldn't get over the author's attitude. I needed more insight to understand her life choices which just wasn't provided. It is the author's right to her privacy, but this is a memoir after all. Feel like she didn't share with us the whole truth.

A down and dirty chef's memoir about high times, humble beginnings, cooking and hard work. Also gives a peak into high rolling NYC in the late 1980s & commercial catering kitchens. Great way to remind home cooks that we aren't all cut out to become chefs.

This book made me want to have a dinner party. Hamilton chronicles her journey from catering chef to restauranteur while showing how food brings us all together. I'm not a foodie, but this memoir opened my eyes to the power of a meal with friends.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fantastic. The way she talked about food was mesmerizing. I loved how food, meals, and cooking were there in everything she did, even when she tried to do something else. Not only an excellent food memoir, but an excellent memoir.