Give a Girl a Knife: A Memoir Audiobook (Free)

A beautifully created food memoir chronicling one woman’s trip from her rural Midwestern hometown towards the intoxicating world of New York City okay dining-and back again again-in search of her culinary origins

Before Amy Thielen frantically plated rings of truffled potatoes in some of New York City’s finest kitchens-for chefs David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten-she grew up in a northern Minnesota town house to the nation’s largest French fry manufacturer, the headwaters of about Give a Gal a Knife: A Memoir the junk food nation, with a mother whose nice food preparation dripped with tenderness, dilemma, and an overabundance of butter.

Influenced by her grandmother’s stories of cooking in the family members farmhouse, Thielen techniques north with her musician husband to a rustic, off-the-grid cabin deep in the woods. There, standing up at the stove three times per day, she finds the seed of a growing food obsession leading her towards the sensory madhouse of New York’s best haute food brigades. But, just like a magnet, the meals of her youngsters draw her back home, where she comes in person with her previous and a curious truth: that beneath every foie gras sauce is situated a rural base of potatoes and onions.

Amy Thielen’s coming-of-age story pulses with energy, a cook’s attention for intimate fine detail, and a dose of dry Midwestern humor. Give a Female a Knife gives a fresh, brilliant view into New York’s high-end restaurants before returning Thielen to her root base, where she realizes that this marrow running through her bone fragments is not demi-glace but gravy-thick with nostalgia and really difficult to resist.