Happy Monday, all! This week’s Must Read Monday is near and dear to my heart. It’s a book called Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time, written by classically-trained chef Georgia Pellegrini. (Follow the link to see her own website!) This book was a gift from two sweet friends last Christmas, and I did not hesitate to start reading. With a name like “Girl Hunter,” it called right to me, since that’s exactly what I am! And, what do you know? The very first character we meet in the prologue is a farmer named George Hollis. Oh man! I was hooked. Pellegrini got a little bit later start at hunting, but boy did she make up for it. As a trained chef and food lover, working at farm-to-table restaurants in New York and France, she set out on a mission to learn more about exactly where the food she was cooking came from. Reading about her first hunt with Mr. Hollis, we discover that she had never even shot a gun at the onset of her journey. Through adventures both with veteran hunters and on her own over the next several years, she is able to describe herself as “an omnivore who has solved her dilemma,” recognizing the importance of knowing where your food really comes from. Each chapter tells a different story and offers an array of different recipes. I fully agree with her statement that “the pleasures of knowing what occurred on the journey from the field to the table are just as important, because the food tastes so much better that way…” (p.12). Preach!

“Girl Hunter is an evocative account of Pellegrini’s gun-to-table experiences…It’s an unlikely pairing of Nigella Lawson’s culinary skills and Hemingway’s grit.” – Macleans