688: Gabrielle Hamilton on Writing Hard Truths and Prune’s New Era

Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef/owner of Prune restaurant in New York’s East Village and is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef and the cookbook Prune. Her moving new memoir Next of Kin is an unflinching portrait of her dynamic family and its dramatic dissolution through death, betrayal, and time. It is a chef’s memoir with barely any food but plenty of propulsive writing. Today on the show, Gabrielle shares how she wrote this deeply personal book, how Prune is operating as a private restaurant today, and much more.

Also on the show, we catch up with Nicola Olivieri, the CEO of Italian bakery Olivieri 1882. The topic is panettone, which is one of our favorite holiday traditions. Nicola runs the bakery with his brother Andrea and has an amazing story about growing their business and making our favorite panettone around. The Wirecutter agrees.

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If you’re a fan of smart and lively conversations about food, home cooking, and culture, this is the place. We interview the most interesting characters in the world of food, media, and cookbooks and release episodes several times a month. The program is hosted by TASTE editors Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard, and is sometimes recorded live at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City.

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