Gabrielle Hamilton and the Proposal That Wouldn’t Leave

(Beshert: Any good, or fortuitous match.)

Five years ago, I was a senior editor at Clarkson Potter, and every week, we’d have an editorial meeting during which we’d talk about the various projects that had arrived the week before, and discuss their merit as possible additions to our list. At that point in time, someone named Gabrielle Hamilton—chef/owner of Prune, in Manhattan—had been publishing tightly-written, thought-provoking pieces in magazines that ranged from The New Yorker to Food & Wine. In a world filled with rock and roll chefs, obnoxious hipsters, and food writers with egos the size of the back end of an elephant, she eschewed pomposity. Her appetizer of choice involved a Triscuit. She did things like hire blind line cooks. She was a dishwasher at a tourist restaurant when she was 12. Flying in the face of everything in food that deserves a Bronx cheer and that has sometimes made it a caricature of itself, Gabrielle Hamilton was a little scary, because she was totally and completely real.

Anyway, one day during our editorial meeting, our editor in chief announced that she had received Gabrielle’s proposal for a memoir called Blood, Bones, and Butter. This particular editor in chief, not given to hyperbole, seemed reticent about wanting to declare the thing good, or great, or even just so-so. But she did want reads (wherein her staff would take home copies of the proposal and report back over the next few days), and so I volunteered. It was on the short side, and by the end of that evening’s commute, I’d read the whole thing. I was stammering. It was shockingly real, painfully honest, and wildly brave. This is a woman who says with her writing, “this is me. Take me. Or leave me. But what you get is me. Not some hyper-glossed, attitudinal, rhapsodic-waxing, MFK Fisher quoting, locavore-by-day, Twinkie-binging-by-night trend-Gumby.” Unfortunately, we dropped out of the book’s auction mid-stream. It went for a lot of money, and then it disappeared.

For years.

But I kept my copy of the proposal, and every once in a while, I’d re-read it. It was sort of like Draino; it would unclog the reading pipes every time a bit of overwrought, cloying writing landed on my desk. I waited for a long time for the book to come out, and then I stopped waiting and got on with my life. But the proposal lingered on, mysteriously showing up in weird places in my house: in the den, under a Pantone book. In my office, under a pile of books about drinking (I was writing No Sudden Movements at the time). In the bathroom. In the basement, half a decade later.

One day a little less than a year ago, Susan came home from work, poured herself a glass of wine, and pulled her aunt’s old ladderback chair into the kitchen, where I was cooking.

“So, I got a new book to design today—” she said, taking a sip.

“Cool,” I responded. “What is it?”

“Well, you won’t believe it. My boss came into my office to ask me if I knew who the author was—”

“And—?”

“It’s Gabrielle Hamilton. We’re publishing her memoir.”

I dropped my spoon. It’d been five years, and I’d carefully stuffed the fact of the impending book into the back of my brain, and now, here it was, on Susan’s desk at Random House.

“You’re serious—”

“I am,” she said, smiling shyly, which is what she does when she’s very, very excited.

The manuscript had gone underground for a while, and then moved from one publisher to another (as they often do), before landing on my partner’s desk. Over the next few months, Susan lived and breathed this book, as part of her list. She never offered to bring it home for me to read, and I never asked her for it. There’s the whole conflict of interest thing, for one thing. And sometimes, it really is just better to wait. Even for a long, long time.

When the fifth volume of Canal House Cooking (published by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, Gabrielle’s sister) arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago, I sat myself down on the couch and read it from cover to cover. There, in the first section of the book, was an essay by Gabrielle—a simple piece about the meaning of celebration, and her struggle to take time for herself during the holidays. I read it, read it again, and reminded myself why, in this world of mediocrity run amok and the speed to market that often engenders it, five years is a perfectly fine amount of time to spend looking forward to something.

Especially when you still have the proposal, to tide you over.