A beautifully written food memoir chronicling one woman’s journey from her rural Midwestern hometown to the intoxicating world of New York City okay dining-and back again-in search of her culinary root base

Before Amy Thielen frantically plated rings of truffled potatoes in a few of New York City’s finest kitchens-for chefs David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten-she grew up in a north Minnesota town home towards the nation’s largest French fry manufacturer, the headwaters of about Provide a Young lady a Knife: A Memoir the fast food nation, using a mother whose generous food preparation dripped with tenderness, dilemma, and an overabundance of butter.

Influenced by her grandmother’s stories of cooking in the family farmhouse, Thielen techniques north with her artist hubby to a rustic, off-the-grid cabin deep in the woods. There, position at the range three times each day, she finds the seed of an evergrowing food obsession that leads her to the sensory madhouse of New York’s best haute cuisine brigades. But, like a magnet, the meals of her youngsters draw her back home, where she comes in person with her past and a curious truth: that beneath every foie gras sauce lies a rural basis of potatoes and onions.

Amy Thielen’s coming-of-age tale pulses with energy, a cook’s eyesight for intimate fine detail, and a dosage of dried out Midwestern humor. Give a Gal a Knife gives a fresh, vivid watch into New York’s high-end restaurants before coming back Thielen to her root base, where she realizes the marrow running through her bones is not demi-glace but gravy-thick with nostalgia and really difficult to resist.