Give a Girl a Knife
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Amy Thielen
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By:
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Amy Thielen
About this listen
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.
©2017 Amy Thielen (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Stir
- My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home
- By: Jessica Fechtor
- Narrated by: Jessica Fechtor
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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At 28, Jessica Fechtor was happily immersed in graduate school and her young marriage and thinking about starting a family. Then one day she went for a run, and an aneurysm burst in her brain. She nearly died. She lost her sense of smell and the sight in her left eye and was forced to the sidelines of the life she loved. Jessica's journey to recovery began in the kitchen as soon as she was able to stand at the stovetop and stir. There, she drew strength from the restorative power of cooking and baking.
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Wonderful powerful read
- By Amazon Customer on 01-13-24
By: Jessica Fechtor
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Toast
- The Story of a Boy's Hunger
- By: Nigel Slater
- Narrated by: Nigel Slater
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Toast is Nigel Slater's truly extraordinary story of a childhood remembered through food. In each chapter, as he takes listeners on a tour of the contents of his family's pantry (rice pudding, tinned ham, cream soda, mince pies, lemon drops, bourbon biscuits), we are transported.
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Nigel Slater is fabulous!
- By S on 02-13-07
By: Nigel Slater
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Buttermilk Graffiti
- A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine
- By: Edward Lee
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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American food is the story of mash-ups. Immigrants arrive, cultures collide, and out of the push-pull come exciting new dishes and flavors. But for Edward Lee, who, like Anthony Bourdain or Gabrielle Hamilton, is as much a writer as he is a chef, that first surprising bite is just the beginning. What about the people behind the food? What about the traditions, the innovations, the memories? A natural-born storyteller, Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the country.
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Good listen for the aspiring food snob
- By thurman r. on 02-09-22
By: Edward Lee
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The Hundred-Foot Journey
- A Novel
- By: Richard C. Morais
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Born above his grandfather’s modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumière, a small village in the French Alps.
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Great details & writing in a flawed story
- By David Shear on 02-12-14
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Angelina's Bachelors
- A Novel, with Food
- By: Brian O'Reilly
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Far too young to be a widow, Angelina D’Angelo suddenly finds herself facing a life without her beloved husband, Frank. Late one night shortly after the funeral, she makes her way down to the kitchen and pours all of her grief and anger into the only outlet she has left - her passion for cooking.
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A Mouthwatering Comfort Listen
- By Blee Medel on 01-30-12
By: Brian O'Reilly
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The Bucolic Plague
- How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir
- By: Josh Kilmer-Purcell
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A happy series of accidents and a doughnut-laden escape upstate take Josh Kilmer-Purcell and his partner, Brent Ridge, to the doorstep of the magnificent (and fabulously for sale) Beekman Mansion. And so begins their transformation from uptight urbanites into the 200-year-old-mansion-owning Beekman Boys. Suddenly Josh---a full-time New Yorker with a successful advertising career---and Brent find themselves weekend farmers, surrounded by nature's bounty and an eclectic cast.
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Selling your dream and name dropping
- By Mark on 09-13-12
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Death al Dente
- Food Lovers' Village Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: Leslie Budewitz
- Narrated by: Rebecca Mitchell
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The town of Jewel Bay, Montana - known as a Food Lovers' Village - is obsessed with homegrown and homemade Montana fare. So when Erin Murphy takes over her family's century-old general store, she turns it into a boutique market filled with local delicacies. But Erin's freshly booming business might go rotten when a former employee turns up dead.
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Four and a half stars
- By Beatrice on 05-01-17
By: Leslie Budewitz
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Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking
- A Memoir of Food and Longing
- By: Anya von Bremzen
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Anya occupies two parallel food universes: one where she writes about four-star restaurants, the other where a taste of humble kolbasa transports her back to her scarlet-blazed socialist past. To bring that past to life, in its full flavor, both bitter and sweet, Anya and her mother, Larisa, embark on a journey unlike any other: they decide to eat and cook their way through every decade of the Soviet experience - turning Larisa’s kitchen into a "time machine and an incubator of memories". Together, mother and daughter re-create meals both modest and sumptuous.
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Does Pronunciation Matter?
- By Mary on 11-23-13
By: Anya von Bremzen
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The Kitchen Counter Cooking School
- How A Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks
- By: Kathleen Flinn
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, writer Kathleen Flinn returned with no idea what to do next, until one day at a supermarket she watched a woman loading her cart with ultraprocessed foods. Flinn's "chefternal" instinct kicked in: she persuaded the stranger to reload with fresh foods, offering her simple recipes for healthy, easy meals.
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Just as much a self-help book as a cookbook.
- By J. Locke on 03-07-13
By: Kathleen Flinn
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The Midwest Survival Guide
- How We Talk, Love, Work, Drink, and Eat... Everything with Ranch
- By: Charlie Berens
- Narrated by: Charlie Berens
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Have you ever had a goodbye lasting more than four hours? Do you lack the emotional capacity to say “I love you” so you just tell your loved ones to “watch out for deer”? Have you apologized to a stranger because she stepped on your foot? If you answered yes to any of these questions, there’s a good chance you’re a Midwesterner - or a Midwesterner at heart.
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Perfect for the Long Drive to WI
- By Amazon Customer on 01-24-22
By: Charlie Berens
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Meet Your Baker
- By: Ellie Alexander
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder.
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Fun Culinary Cozy
- By Bookishly on 04-18-18
By: Ellie Alexander
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Hotbox
- Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business
- By: Matt Lee, Ted Lee
- Narrated by: Matt Lee, Ted Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Matt Lee and Ted Lee take on the competitive, wild world of high-end catering, exposing the secrets of a food business few home cooks or restaurant chefs ever experience.
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Needs to be a series!
- By Sallyterra on 04-27-19
By: Matt Lee, and others
What listeners say about Give a Girl a Knife
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gary J. Glomski
- 02-24-22
good book
very easy read with lots of good tricks on cooking. gr8 story highly recommended for your enjoyment 😉
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- Lorna
- 06-26-18
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.
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- Janice Olson
- 09-06-17
Give A GirlA Knife: A Memoir
I absolutely loved this book. Growing up in Minnesota, I could relate to so many of the experiences Amy Thielen wrote about. This book brought me back to my childhood memories around the dinner table. If I could choose a friend, I would pick Amy Thielen! She is so likable, and down to earth. A true Minnesotan! She has led an interesting life by following her dreams.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Eric
- 01-02-18
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.
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- cindy
- 09-20-21
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.
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- Minneapolis listener
- 09-23-22
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.
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- Kerry
- 01-16-20
A Beautifully Written, Heartfelt Memoir
Loved every word. What an interesting life! A great take on food, family, the choices we make, and where they take us.
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- Etoile NEOhio
- 06-03-22
Very enjoyable
She has led an interesting life. Now that I have listened to the book, I wish I could see her TV show, but not enough to pay for it on Amazon Prime.
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- Jeanne Markell
- 07-18-22
I love this so much I listen to it and then read it
As a Minnesotan to grow up in a small town and did not return I really appreciated Amy’s love and nostalgia about her childhood
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-06-23
Fun 1st Half. Boring second half.
The 1st half of the book is fun as you follow Amy in restaurants out of cooking school. However, the 2nd half of the book is mind numbingly boring. She talks about the most mundane details of her life. She also inexplicably jumps from the most interesting part of her life (cooking in NYC) to when she was a child and continues on to after she returns to MN. It's like someone told her that the rest of her book was boring so she should put the most interesting part 1st. However there is no explanation for the jump. It feels disjointed and made me hope for more of the type of the story I heard in the beginning. But that never happened. Had the book started with the beginning of her life, I wouldn't have read it. I had a really difficult time finishing it.
I wanted to read a book about a professional chef and thought it would be fun that she goes back to MN after being a chef in NYC. Well, the 2nd half of the book has almost no professional chef stories in it. I thought she would go back to MN to start a restaurant, but she instead decides to stop working in restaurants altogether and tells you the story of mundane daily life and being broke again. It's just her standing in grocery stores, gardening, talking to small town folks about any old thing, and choosing not to do the thing that made her interesting.
I don't understand how this book has such good reviews. It's like reading a boring person's diaries--any trivial detail is included. Also the arc of the story is pretty disappointing. She starts off adrift in life and broke but enjoying living off the land. She then makes it somewhat in NYC as a chef, and then returns to where she started. I'm glad she is happy and enjoys her life but that doesn't mean it makes an interesting story.
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