Prune

Starred review from September 15, 2014
This is one of the most brilliantly minimalist cookbooks in recent memory: no preface, no introduction, no interminable recounting of all that Hamilton has witnessed in her 15 years as the chef/owner of New York’s Prune restaurant. Instead, nested throughout the 250 recipes, in a handwritten font, are scribblings, usually in the form of orders rather than suggestions, as if the reader were on her payroll. It’s an appealing tactic, in a masochistic kind of way, which at once conveys the thrill of restaurant cooking and the wisdom of the author, while making for a charged reading experience. “Don’t just slam them into the pan and manhandle,” she advises in a recipe for razor clams with smoked paprika butter. Her carrot-peeling advice is equally blunt: “Long fluid strokes please—do not chisel away at them into a cubist rendering.” At the end of an entry for salt and sugar-cured green tomatoes, she challenges the imagination by planting a suggestion, like any good boss would, “We should figure out something to do with the interesting cured tomato water.... Maybe the bartenders have an idea?” Twelve of the book’s 13 chapters are jammed with intensely flavored entries. The other, entitled “Garbage,” finds purpose for limp celery and smoked fish scraps, of which the author warns, “I’ll kill you if you waste it.” Perhaps a little fear is warranted after all.

November 15, 2014

Acclaimed chef Hamilton (Blood, Bones, & Butter) illuminates the differences between home and restaurant cooking with these 250 succulent dishes from Prune, her restaurant in New York City's East Village. The recipe for roasted capon on garlic croutons, for instance, yields eight to 16 "orders," calls for such professional tools as a hotel pan and walk-in refrigerator and tells readers what to do if they're running behind during a restaurant service. Other recipes, rife with chef lingo and candid advice on everything from how to extend the life of costly ingredients to how to avoid angering the Health Department, are entertaining to read but onerous. Still, simpler offerings (e.g., sour cream and toasted caraway omelette, canned sardines with Triscuits, Dijon mustard, and cornichons) will tempt home cooks. VERDICT Like Suzanne Goin's The A.O.C. Cookbook and April Bloomfield's A Girl and Her Pig, this unique cookbook highlights the personality and creative process of a top female chef. Highly recommended for would-be restaurant professionals.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
Chef at New York City's Prune, Hamilton has reaped kudos for her inventive and deeply satisfying cooking. Long queues form in the East Village on Sunday mornings for her brunch. The myriad recipes that underlie Prune's menus appear in these pages. They are not much designed for the home cook but are meant for professional chefs: instructions include such directions as Don't let this sit in the pass and plating directives. She even explains how waiters should pronounce certain dishes. Recipes range from a complex cold pork with tuna sauce to a simple butter-and-sugar sandwich. There's also a grand section on the family meal, the daily repast served to staff before the restaurant opens to the public, some recipes demonstrating how to use kitchen oddments to advantage for that service. Despite the book's address to fellow restaurateurs, skilled home chefs can find a number of ways to profit from a fair number of Hamilton's creations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)