Give a Girl a Knife

A Memoir

By: Amy Thielen

Narrated by: Amy Thielen

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

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 home to the nation’s largest French fry factory, the headwaters of the fast food nation, with a mother whose generous cooking dripped with tenderness, drama, and an overabundance of butter.
Inspired by her grandmother’s tales of cooking in the family farmhouse, Thielen moves north with her artist husband to a rustic, off-the-grid cabin deep in the woods. There, standing at the stove three times a day, she finds the seed of a growing food obsession that leads her to the sensory madhouse of New York’s top haute cuisine brigades. But, like a magnet, the foods of her youth draw her back home, where she comes face to face with her past and a curious truth: that beneath every foie gras sauce lies a rural foundation of potatoes and onions.
Amy Thielen’s coming-of-age story pulses with energy, a cook’s eye for intimate detail, and a dose of dry Midwestern humor. Give a Girl a Knife offers a fresh, vivid view into New York’s high-end restaurants before returning Thielen to her roots, where she realizes that the marrow running through her bones is not demi-glace but gravy—thick with nostalgia and hard to resist.

Critic reviews

"Give a Girl a Knife made me consider a move to, or at least a summer spent in, rural Minnesota just to be close to Amy and her home kitchen. I've read my fair share of chef memoirs—full of heroes, hard nights, and militant discipline. Amy's story is different. It's about more than her wacky path through some of New York's best kitchens; it's about Amy's innate need to cook. What is it they say? Writers write. Chefs cook. Amy is the rare example of someone who does both like a boss!"
—Vivian Howard, author of Deep Run Roots

"Amy's story of being true to herself, even when it means going against the grain (and off the grid, both literally and figuratively), is exciting and inspiring. I love how food lures her to return home—but this time on her own terms."
—Andie Mitchell, author of It Was Me All Along

“Fans of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones and Butter will enjoy this chef's memoir of learning to cook in Minnesota and dicing and deep-frying her way through the kitchens of some of New York's most esteemed chefs.”
—AM New York

"One of the best coming of age food memoirs you’ll ever pick up."
—Rolling Stone

"With every turn of the page I felt the tides that pull from country to city: familial love and the consuming desire of an impossibly possible career; the simple pleasures of a freshly-picked kohlrabi and the smell of shaved black truffles."
—Joy Summers, Eater


Notable Press:

2017 Best Books of the Year—Shelf Awareness

The Best Books Written About Food in 2017—The Independent

10 New Nonfiction Food Books to Read this Spring/Summer—Bon Appétit

Book Club Pick—Eater

5 Can't Miss New Reads—Huffington Post

19 Best Books to Read in May—Entertainment Weekly

19 Summer Books That Will Keep You Up All Night Reading—PBS’s NewsHour

5 New Books to Read this Summer—Epicurious

7 New Books you should read in May—Time Out

5 Hot Books— The National Book Review

20 Best Nonfiction Books coming in May—Bustle

10 Best Books of May—Nylon

Favorite Books of May 2017—Read It Forward

Midwest Indie Bookseller pick for June

Austin Page Turners's pick for 2018 city-wide read

good book

very easy read with lots of good tricks on cooking. gr8 story highly recommended for your enjoyment 😉

Easy to listen to.

This book was suggested by a friend. It is not at all my usual style or genre, however it was pleasant enough and I had an easy time listening. Unlike some other books, I didn't devour it voraciously, but instead pecked away at it whenever the mood struck.

Ambivalent

This was ok but nothing that left an impression on me. I vacillated between rooting for Amy and being put off by her. More Meh than Yeah.

Remarkable

I have read several chef memoirs lately, and this one is my favorite. Thielen is deeply interested in food — how it grows, how it’s treated immediately and how it is handled after that.

It is all meaningful to her, and the gorgeous way she writes about it makes that very clear.

If you enjoy her memoir about her NYC/Upper Minnesota life, please be sure to sample her two seasons from the Food Network on Prime and her gorgeous James Beard award winning cookbook. Amy is a great writer, a hard worker and the real thing.

Brings me back to my Midwest roots

I really enjoy Amy Thielen’s cook book and cooking show so I was very excited to see that she had written a memoir about her journey to cooking via Minnesota and New York. I specifically loved the descriptions of New York, its sights sounds...and smells. She vividly depicts the kitchen and cooking scene in New York as well as her adventures in rural Minnesota. I was born in Minneapolis and spent summers in rural Minnesota so the mention of sauerkraut and ring bologna bring back a flood of memories. My favorite parts are the descriptions of cooking in New York. I wish the entire book was spent on this narrative but like her real life, Ms. Thielen’s book is divided between New York and Minnesota. While I enjoyed the Minnesota narrative — meeting her husband, fixing up their rural cabin and eventually settling in Park Rapids, MN — I longed for more ‘dirt’ on the trials and tribulations of the restaurant scene. Still, the narration is superb and the story very good.