Meeting Gabrielle Hamilton

I shouldn't be allowed to meet anyone remotely well-known (or well-known to me, anyway).  I just shouldn't.  I get all flustered and dissolve into verbal diarrhea and spend the two weeks post-meeting dissecting every stupid, incoherent thing I said.  It happened when I met Eric Rohmann, Kenny Loggins, Armistead Maupin...and the list goes on.  That said, there are a number of times when I kept my cool.  For example, it didn't happen when I met Mireille Guiliano because I didn't speak a single word to her in an attempt to break my streak (to which Adam later said to me, "Why didn't you say anything?!  You seemed crazy!").  And it didn't happen when I met a very famous children's author/illustrator, but that's mostly thanks to him - he is one of the most disarming, down-to-earth, and kind authors I've met to date; it was impossible for me to screw it up.  But, mostly, I suck at meeting authors and other awesome people.

Meeting Gabrielle Hamilton was no exception.  Gabrielle Hamilton is a renowned chef (of Prune fame) and author of BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER (which I posted about here), and I had the good fortune to hear her speak recently at Little Red Schoolhouse/Elisabeth Irwin H.S. here in NYC (thanks to Jen for hooking me up with a ticket!).

Gabrielle Hamilton was lovely to listen to.  She was charming and gorgeous, and she read from her own work really well.  If all the dog-ears on my book's pages are any indication, Ms. Hamilton could have chosen any number of sections to read from and I would have been happy!  She read from the seventh chapter where she is accepted to University of Michigan's master's program for fiction writing.  The whole room laughed along with her, as we have all had that experience where we have chased dreams...only to realize that, once achieved, the dream isn't all it's cracked up to be.

For the book signing afterward, Ms. Hamilton was sitting next to Roseanne Cash, who read from her book COMPOSED: A MEMOIR during the evening.  What do I immediately say to Gabrielle Hamilton?  "I love the book so much.  I blogged it and I compared you to MFK Fisher.  It's that good."  And if you're thinking that all this came out in a mad torrent of jumbled words, then you're right. To which Ms. Hamilton archly raised an eyebrow and said, "MFK Fisher?  Really?"  This might have been that moment:

And this is the moment when I should have walked away, having already done some damage.  But, no.  I kept going...

So Roseanne Cash heard me babbling and interjected, "I love MFK Fisher!"  To which I replied by holding up BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER and saying, "But have you read this?!"  Roseanne Cash said that she had not read it yet.  I answered, "Well, you should!"  This is the moment when I'm saying that to her (Roseanne Cash is the redhead):

Good god.

And to complete the night, this is how Gabrielle Hamilton signed my dog-eared galley of her book:

I'm so happy to have had a moment with Gabrielle Hamilton, as I really was rocked by BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER.  I'm just not so sure this is the moment I had envisioned.  To her credit, Ms. Hamilton handled herself with endless grace and poise, even when presented with a ridiculous fan girl.

Eat, drink, and grab the words before they fall out of my mouth!

My Cup Runneth Over

Leaving publishing and libraries behind recently wasn't an easy decision.  And it still isn't.  Likewise, when I left culinary school two years ago, that was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.  But it's okay because it's led me here.  I can't believe I'm able to do freelance work, talk about food, take pictures, spend more time with Bug, travel whenever I want...like, as my life.  This is an amazing time for me and I'm loving every second.  I am so incredibly lucky.

Speaking of lucky, it's been a very good few days for me; let's just say that the mailman has been my friend.  Check out all the delicious treats below:

The lovely Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg sent me a copy of their newest book, THE FOOD LOVER'S GUIDE TO WINE (review coming up).  I'm such an evangelist for their FLAVOR BIBLE and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT - I'm thrilled to be reading the latest.  I now have the trifecta of foodie reference books...and so should you.  Go get them (or give them away for the holidays!).

The awesome folks at Sterling sent me a copy of EDIBLE BROOKLYN: THE COOKBOOK by Rachel Wharton.  I just got it yesterday so I haven't cooked anything from it yet, but I can't wait to dig in.  It's the first cookbook I've seen born from the Edible magazines.

I won a contest!  Thanks to Cooking with Libby and Tate's Bake Shop, I have a copy of their cookbook, TATE'S BAKE SHOP COOKBOOK.  I also got three bags of their Whole Wheat Dark Chocolate cookies.  Review?  So good!  I don't normally like my chocolate chip cookies crunchy but these are different: they have this lacy delicateness to them that I just adore.  I'm happy to dig into these instead of Bug's Halloween candy!

And I won another contest!  In a few short hours, I'll be joining Google Places and Midtown Lunch for lunch at Food Gallery 32!  I have to confess that I've never tried Korean food so this will be a treat.  I'm also going by myself, which means I'll have to be social and introduce myself to strangers.  Eek!

Last but not least, I just found out from a friend of mine that I might be able to see Gabrielle Hamilton speak about BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER, a book that I compared to the work of MFK Fisher.  I'm so beyond excited...really, I can't even express it.

And this is my life.  I can't believe it.  And I can't thank you enough for letting me share my food, my drink, and my table with you!

Eat, drink, and cheers to you!  I'll be paying it forward soon, I promise!



NOTE: It's not all fun and games.  In the midst of trying to get my still-life shot, this kept happening:

Excerpt: BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER by Gabrielle Hamilton

Oh, you guys.  Wow.  I was incredibly lucky recently to score a galley of BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER by Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House, March 2011).  When I heard that Anthony Bourdain had called it "the best food memoir by a chef ever. EVER" and that Mario Batali said that he would "apply for the dishwasher job at Prune to learn from my new queen", I knew I had to read it.  So here's a spoiler:

It really is that good.

I loved it.  I savored every word.  I won't do a full "review", as it's still five months out from publication.  But here is an excerpt of a section that particularly spoke to me:

I want to do the cooking.  It is what grounds me, gives me pleasure, and is the best way for me to communicate with the Italian-speaking family and to make a contribution.  But it can also make me feel like the hired help.  While Michel babysits the kids at the pool for the day, dozing in and out of naps and reading the newspaper and having fluid conversations with people in his native tongue I am nagged by an emptiness while I am neatening and organizing the drawers and shelves in all the cabinets, and it continues as I move up and down each aisle in the grocery store, and interferes still while I am chopping each onion at the newly created cooking island in front of the kitchen stove.  By the time I check out at the grocery store and I've put this grocery bill on my personal card, sauted the onions with the potatoes, and wiped down the counter, I feel precariously poised exactly between totally perfect, as if I am exactly where I should be, and totally fucked-up, as if I were bankrolling my own martyrdom. [quoted from advanced reader's edition]

Oh my god.  Yes.

Is this the "best" passage I could have shared?  Perhaps not.  But this section summed up so many of my own conflicted feelings about cooking for my family and friends: I love cooking...but...god, I'm so not the caterer, dudes.  I am not the Alice to your Brady Bunch.  And the best food writing, in my mind, is that which reflects back to us our own experiences, our own passions, our own humanity.  Which BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER accomplishes.  In spades.  I most certainly wasn't doing coke lines and living on my own at 16 years old...but somehow, some way, Gabrielle Hamilton's experiences still end up being my own.  And don't even get me started on her passage about women in restaurants: I'm not a chef in a restaurant but Hamilton still manages to mirror my own feelings about being a woman in a professional environment.  It's brilliant.

To keep myself from going on and on, I just want to end by saying this: buy it.  Mark it, pre-order it, schedule it on your Outlook.  This is the second coming of M.F.K Fisher.  And I do not say this lightly.

Eat, drink, and jump on the Gabrielle Hamilton bandwagon.