Gabrielle Hamilton

First off, I think that Hamilton can write well. She can create a kitchen scene and make you feel like you are right there in the middle of things with her. Unfortunately, those scenes don't happen often enough.

She's had a tough life and done amazing things with limited resources but she's kind of an awful person. I was OK with her personality for the first part of the book but she started to lose me when she participated in the panel of female chefs at the CIA and then was so annoyed by the behavior of the other women that she just decided not to speak. She lost me further when she randomly stopped being a lesbian to marry an Italian guy who she certainly didn't seem to like much and then proceeded to complain constantly about how their marriage was terrible.

She's also an incredible snob about pretty much everything. (How dare she mock my vanilla latte!) When she described her epic blood sugar meltdown problem in the midst of telling us how she wouldn't stoop to eat food at a place that offered free mimosas no matter how hungry she was, she lost me forever.

Because I loved reading about the parties her father threw during her childhood and because I really enjoyed some of the other kitchen scenes, I'll give this three stars, but it probably only deserves two.




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It was a little disorienting how she would jump around in time, skipping 20 years here and then dropping a scene from that skipped time into a later chapter. Plus, what kind of author/chef skips the part where they travel the world? That's one of the most fun and interesting things people do in life, and she glossed it with a list of countries she hit and a few pages talking about how depressing Europe is in the winter.

The lovelessness, the inability to talk deeply and chat lightly, the staying together for family (his family, which she adored and didn't want to lose) even after all emotion had turned to hard resentment and dislike - all of this made her marriage feel like it was straight out of the 1950s, which was deeply unsettling. Since her marriage was involved in about 50% of the book, I was unsettled for that much of the book.

So why the four stars? First, I loved the descriptions of her early family life. Second, I love the descriptions of her husband's family, food, houses, kitchens, and Sunday lunches. Third, her descriptions of catering were fun and interesting. And finally, she is just really damn interesting.

Oh yeah, and this: "People who know me well understand fully what I am saying when I suggest that I am working an appetite and that we'd best be making our move. This means it is time to hit the road before my blood sugar - what's left of it - crashes to that point where I'm going to RUIN YOUR FUCKING DAY." Girrrrl, been there. Like every single weekend.
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Well, this review may be the skimpiest I have ever written because I read this book right at the beginning of the month and haven't had a moment to breathe, never mind write a review, until today.

Let's just say, I like memoirs in general, but this one really did stand out to me for it is complete and total honesty. Ms. Hamilton actually says things that other people only think. I LOVED that about this book.

Ms. Hamilton runs a successful restaurant in New York City, and this memoir details both her journey as a chef and as a person. She takes us from her childhood where she learned a love of food from her French mother through her teen angst amidst her parents' divorce through her career path (starting at the very bottom). The best part (in my opinion) discusses her unique and unusual marriage and relationship with her husband's Italian family.

A lot of things don't really go Ms. Hamilton's way, and she never wallows in self pity - - she just shares what she did and how she did it, including the good, bad, and the ugly thoughts she had along the way.

It didn't quite make it to five stars for me . . .and I think that may have been because she didn't quite delve as deeply into the restaurant business as I was hoping for - - this book is deeply personal. And because she is so, so frank - - sometimes your sympathy is lessened toward her. So, all in all, well worth reading and definitely it deserved the critical acclaim it received.
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This one took a while for me to get into it, although I liked it quite well once I did. The author is very angry, and while that feels very authentic and refreshing (as an angry person, I can relate), it also feels like the book is more about the swinging emotional temperature than it is about food or cooking. I can also strongly relate to Hamilton's ambivalence about her role as a female chef in a male-dominated career -- the push and pull of wanting people just to do the thing and recognize you for being great at the thing without gender qualifiers, but also the need for representation. It's funny, I really liked this book -- I liked the rawness, the unflinching hard work and the high standard that she holds herself to, but I also question writing it right before an impending divorce (? seems probable) -- because it left me all wrapped up in angry, frustrated marriage feelings when what I wanted more of was the food.… (more)