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

Gabrielle Hamilton searched for meaning and purpose in her life for twenty years before opening the critically renowned restaurant Prune in New York. 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. Gabrielle Hamilton's narrative is recounted with extraordinary honesty, grit, humor, and emotion. It is at once epic and personal.