366 of 392 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Blood and bones but not much butter, February 7, 2011
This review is from: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
A memoir written by a chef is appealing because it promises to take us to a place few of us ever see, unless it's on the Food Network---that is, a restaurant kitchen. It promises to reveal all of the gritty, unlovely steps leading up to the moment when the beautiful plate emerges from the pass and into the hands of the waitstaff. In addition, after Anthony Bourdain led the way, such a memoir must also offer appetite-killers: dirty walk-ins, unsavory butchering scenes. And, like a religious testament, it also has those conversion moments, the moment when the chef discovers that she or he is destined to become an artist with food. Gabrielle Hamilton's memoir has all of these elements.
When Hamilton writes about food, she's entertaining, irreverent, and even spiritual. Her engaging account of her father's spring lamb roast (an edited version of this piece recently appeared in The New Yorker) establishes the origins of her love of food. Her account of her years working for catering companies will make you think hard before you pick up that next wedding hors d'oeuvre from the waiter's silver plate. And a chapter about cooking at a summer camp in the Berkshires is funny and deft in its handling of detail. I loved her wry depiction of the time she spent in a master's writing program, from the satirical descriptions of her fellow writers to her homage to Misty, a fellow cook and, for Hamilton, a kind of culinary muse.
This book aspires to be more than just a chef memoir, however, since the subtitle refers to "The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef." In particular, this is a book about family: about Hamilton's own family, painfully riven by divorce when she was still a child, and about her marriage and the birth of her two sons. With the exception of the opening chapters, these parts of the book are often difficult to read, mostly because they have almost none of the good qualities (sharp detail, humor, self-awareness) of the "chef" sections. Her relationship with her mother, the "spider" of a chapter about a long, miserable visit to Vermont, is so angry and painful that you want to avert your eyes. After such a rant, a reader comes not a whit closer to understanding this mother or why she behaves as she does. As for Hamilton's marriage to Michele, the man whose ancestral home in Italy is the setting for the last ("Butter') section of the book, this too is the subject of pages and pages of rage and disappointment. Yes, this unhappiness is somewhat mitigated by Hamilton's initial happiness in cooking and eating in Italy, as well as her pleasure in being part of Michele's extended family. In the end, however, the many pages devoted to descriptions of glorious Italian foodstuffs (think Frances Mayes, with cursing) turn into too much eggplant, the Italian family disappoints, and the marriage remains a source of sorrow.
There are many memoirs about unhappy families. How the writer shapes that material is key. The difference between "Blood, Bones, and Butter" and other memoirs about bad parents, like Tobias Wolff's "This Boy's Life" or Mary Karr's "The Liar's Club," is one of perspective. Even when Wolff is telling us about how his mother failed to protect him from his abusive stepfather or Karr is describing yet another chilling incident with her parents, we know the grown-up writers understand why their parents acted the way they did. This sort of perspective is not evident in Hamilton's memoir, perhaps because she has not yet gained it. In her book, the education of Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef, is presented as the most interesting of dishes, full of diverse and sometimes surprising ingredients---and so it is. (I was lucky to have the chance to eat, just once, in her restaurant, Prune, and she is truly a wonder in the kitchen.) However, her depiction here of her education as daughter, wife, and mother awaits a more finished account.
M. Feldman
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
106 of 118 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Literary + Culinary Creativity, February 28, 2011
This review is from: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
"Slowly the meadow filled with people and fireflies and laughter -- just as my father had imagined -- and the lambs on their spits were hoisted off the pit onto the shoulders of men, like in a funeral procession, and set down on the makeshift plywood-on-sawhorse tables to be carved. Then the sun started to set and we lit the paper bag luminaria, which burned soft glowing amber, punctuating the meadow and the night, and the lamb was crisp-skinned and sticky from slow roasting, and the root beer was frigid and caught, like an emotion, in the back of my throat."
Gabrielle Hamilton looks back on her nine-year-old self in that passage -- over-the-moon infatuated with her older siblings, her mother's way in the kitchen and her father's way with setting a stage ... and unaware that divorce and neglect are just around the corner.
By 13, she's drugging with an older crowd and lying about her age to get work in restaurant kitchens to support herself; before long she's participating in a felony-level employee theft racket. Yet she has a knack for stumbling onto cooking mentors and gradually learns enough to run the kitchen at a kids' summer camp and freelance-cook at high-volume caterers for fancy Hamptons (NY) parties. She completes a fiction-writing MFA, but only because she simultaneously finds a wellspring of sanity and true creativity in a side cooking job that recalls the down-to-earth food and settings of her childhood. And it's with that "real food" perspective that she eventually opens a restaurant -- New York City's acclaimed Prune.
There's evidence of that MFA in this memoir -- a beautiful mix of literary and culinary creativity. I marked evocative passages throughout, and especially recall Hamilton's homage to the simplicity and humility of 75-year-old (chef extraordinaire) Andre Soltner preparing a perfect omelet. Although she does settle into a somewhat straightforward prose to tell the bulk of her story, and I don't think she's quite figured out her relationships with her parents or partners, these pages are fierce and vivid. And thus I also find myself over-the-moon infatuated -- with Hamilton's writing and with her story of reclaiming family ... or at least an adult, work-centered facsimile of it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Promising early on, but second half degrades with every page, April 23, 2011
This review is from: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (Hardcover)
Anthony Bourdain's memoir, `Kitchen Confidential,' was a revelation for me. I had never been exposed to the hidden world of restaurant kitchens. His personality can be grating and his style is exaggerated, but he had a story to tell, and told it well. After reading his book, I wanted more of this insane cooking underworld.
I thought of his book when I purchased `Blood, Bones & Butter,' (BB&B) a memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef and owner of Prune restaurant in New York. In fact, his quote is on the cover of the book, "Magnificent. Simply the best memoir by a chef ever. Ever." (Italics on the cover) Is he saying this with a sense of sarcasm since his memoir was so popular? I hope so. While there are flashes of inspiring prose and some compelling stories, the complete package is uneven and disappointing, like a collapsed chocolate soufflé.
As the title suggests, the book is broken into three sections. The first is called `Blood', and presumably refers to the author's family. Initially, I was seduced by Hamilton's very `writerly' style. Early on, I flipped to the back cover and sure enough, she has an MFA from the University of Michigan. She has legitimate writing chops. Her style is a mix between elegance and grittiness, which is somewhat of an odd combination, and yet works well at the beginning. In the first few chapters, I had difficulty adjusting to her style, which is somewhat dense, yet I was intrigued enough to keep going, and eventually found a rhythm.
In the first chapter, Hamilton paints an idyllic view of her French aristocratic mother, dreamer artist father and her siblings. She describes an annual party that the family threw, around her ninth birthday I believe, which seems to be the last happy memory she has of her family together. She masterfully includes poignant details, like keeping drinks chilled in a nearby stream, word play with her father's nickname, and vivid descriptions of food.
The fun ends with the first chapter, as her parents seemingly abandon her and a brother, to literally fend for themselves, in a big house in what seems like a somewhat rural area of New Jersey, but not far from a small town. Forced to earn a living at thirteen, she lies about her age and begins working at a local diner, as a dish washer, and then eventually works as a waitress in New York. These early chapters work because Hamilton has interesting stories to tell about her rough and tumble early entrance into adulthood. The last chapter in the section describes the author's gruesome killing of a chicken after a retreat from New York, while staying at her father's house. And she ends this section with a funny and memorable way, which shows her ability to turn a phrase:
"There are two things you should never do with your father: learn how to drive and learn how to kill a chicken. I'm not sure you should sit across from each other and eat the roasted bird in resentful silence either, but we did that too, and the meat, as if scripted, was disagreeably tough."
The section called `Bones' is the longest (about half the book) and I'm guessing that the title refers to her fully growing into adulthood, but there could be multiple interpretations. This section starts well, with some interesting stories, like her amusing work as a chef for a kid's camp (poor lobsters!) and the opening of Prune. I found her non-traditional training as a chef, during her romp across Europe (particularly the little restaurant in Serifos), enduring and particularly insightful for understanding her cooking.
While the story of Prune is compelling, the author's voice changes throughout the chapter, and sometimes she seems to be channeling Anthony Bourdain. The rants about cooking seemed forced and fake, and they seem to come out of nowhere. Like the following passage,
"Sunday is an order fire day. Every ticket comes in and is shouted out and is picked up immediately. We do not wait patiently while the customer enjoys a section of the New York Times over a nice bowl of homemade granola before firing up his sour cream and caraway omelette. We do not. We are sometimes laying down omelette pans on the flames by the half-dozen, and delivering that many omelets in as many minutes."
She's a professional chef with 20 years of experience. Is it really that hard to cook a bunch of eggs? Everybody thinks that they have a stressful job, but not everybody does. I don't know what it's like to be a chef, but her tough attitude seems inauthentic and wildly exaggerated.
When she meets her husband, on page 159, the book starts to fall apart. A couple things happen at this point. The stories start to become more infrequent and it's replaced largely with the author's ruminations. Her restaurant is already open and seemingly successful, so these stories start to trail off. The narrative arc where Hamilton overcomes long odds to become a successful restaurateur is over and the new one is her failing marriage, which is somewhat of a bait and switch.
Did she just run out of material? The last half of the book seems like a therapy session and her internal dialogue grates after awhile. She describes a visit to her mother's house, after not seeing her for 20 years. Nothing happens, except the author's vivid depictions of her mother as a spider queen and other terrible incarnations. Some scenes made me cringe, especially the resistance to showing her mother any physical affection seconds after nursing her own child. Give your mom a chance. If she doesn't deserve one, explain why ... otherwise I can't empathize!
The final section, `Butter', ostensibly describes her love of the simple life in Italy, but seems to focus more on her sham marriage. This un-love story is the most painful part of the book. She marries her Italian husband on what seems like a whim, despite the fact that she is in a relationship with a woman and he is legitimately in love with her. Huh? Okay, fine, I'll go with that, but then she proceeds to tear him apart with some vicious comments that took my breath away, like,
"In all the years we have spent together ... he has never, incredibly, incomprehensibly, said anything important to me."
Then, why did you marry him? Why did you have kids with him? She continued to take shots that seem unfair and snarky, and I couldn't really sympathize with this mess of a marriage that she got herself into. And what sends her over the edge, the dagger in the heart of this relationship? Her husband says he wants to buy a new iPhone.
The author's relationship with her husband is a balloon with a hole, which slowly deflates with each passing chapter. Yes, she also develops a special bond with her husband's mother and the people of Italy and their food, yet I was more distracted by the marriage spectacle. I had trouble concentrating on the negroni's and the warm barratta cheese, while she ripped her husband to shreds.
BB&B has some compelling stories that are beautifully told, but the narrative lacks cohesion. While she starts the book `in scene', she seems to devolve into her own head, which is maddening and one of the first lessons that I ever learned about writing effectively (rumination is not interesting). My wild, unsubstantiated guess would be that the first portion of the book was written while the author was getting her MFA (heavily work-shopped) and was the basis for the book contract. Then, she had to write the rest of the book, while running a restaurant, taking care of two kids and dealing with a failing marriage. I'm not sure if that's what happened, but I wouldn't be surprised given how the book degrades with each passing chapter. Too bad, because the first few chapters were really promising.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No