Chef Hamilton and Proust

So I just finished reading one of the greatest contemporary memoirs ever written. Ok, a bold statement; quick second thought places Patti's Smith's,'Just Kids'in a virtual dead heat with this masterpiece. A couple of years ago, on Iron Chef America, I watched Bobby Flay duke it out with young chef, Gabrielle Hamilton. As I watched them battle the constraints of the 60 minute challenge, (the secret ingredient, zucchini) the challenger, Hamilton, very cool, and very gifted (you either perceived this or had fallen asleep on the couch) constructed and plated succulence extraordinaire dispatching Flay, hang-dog, back to his Iron Chef pedestal. Yowza. A word about Iron Chef America. It is a decent imitation of the original Iron Chef which was produced in Japan and had achieved insane cult status. If you never saw the Japanese version, which was special, and I don't mean the episodes with the sorry ass dubbed English voice overs, but the ones which were sub-titled and wildly entertaining, well my friends you missed the wedding. But, I digress. Chef Hamilton has written, a book, 'Blood Bones and Butter' which donkey kongs the rest of non-fiction nation, and hovers on top (yes woman on top) of all other culinary memoirs. Why? Because Chef Hamilton articulates like a knife through butter. Not only is the book on fire in NY (the most jaded place on earth), a March publication, it is already in it's 3rd printing. The book remarkable in it's voice, and holding nothing back, executes transitions which are rich and stunning in their revelations. At the beginning of the book, Gabrielle Hamilton references butter and sugar sandwiches which her French mother made as an after school treat in New Hope, PA. My own mother growing up, dirt poor, frequently ate butter and sugar sandwiches, a dietary staple in her household, and when I was in elementary school, sometimes she made me one too. With a little luck and timing if the avocados were ripe in the backyard, I'd find slices of the compact, slippery gems pressed between the butter and sugar. Today, in a nod to old school familiarity and soul, I made and ate one of those for lunch.