Every family runs on a kind of mythology — the stories we tell about who we are, where we come from, and what we’ve survived. For Gabrielle Hamilton, those stories fueled both her cooking and her writing.

The James Beard Award–winning chef behind Prune and the author of Blood, Bones & Butter has spent her life turning memory into art. In her new book, Next of Kin, she returns to the chaos and brilliance of her childhood — the beauty and the violence, the humor and the heartbreak — to see what still holds true after all these years.

This episode is about how family becomes material, how humor masks survival, and how writing it all down can both preserve and transform the people we come from.

Next of Kin is out now. Grab your copy here.

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