Melissa Hamilton

​What makes Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter stand out so supremely from the pack of shoulda-coulda-wanna been-there-done-that food memoirs? The simple answer is that she's a badass. And a really good writer.

Hamilton is the chef/owner of Prune, an intimately idiosyncratic restaurant in New York City. She and her book have been mentioned in the same garlic-scented breath as Anthony Bourdain, and it's understandable why. Her story of love, family and other miscellaneous crimes is as raw, honest and gutsy as any Kitchen Confidential, but the telling in Blood, Bones & Butter isn't laced with testosterone-driven kitchen horror shows. It's more about the hunger that drives a person's coming of age, one that just happens to be fueled by a life in the arduous arena of restaurant work.

She will read from and sign copies of Blood, Bones & Butter on Monday, January 30, at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books' downtown St. Louis store (321 North Tenth Street; 314-436-3049).

In the frontispiece of Blood, Bones & Butter, there's an illustration of a bloody asparagus on a paper towel. What's the story with that?

Oh, I have a cutting on my arm -- you know, it's one of the "body modification" arts if you want to call it that--

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Stephen Fairbanks

Three Kings Public House is one of three Delmar Loop restaurants using the Tabbedout app for smartphones.

​Tabbedout is a free app for smartphones that allows patrons to open a tab at a bar or restaurant, view the tab in real time and close the tab with a tip -- even after leaving the establishment -- without handing over a credit card.

For customers the advantages are obvious: You don't need to have a credit card on you, much less hand it over, and when you're done you don't have to wait for a busy bartender or server to close your tab. In areas where restaurants and bars cluster in bunches -- the Loop, the Central West End, Maplewood, South Grand, Washington Avenue -- Tabbedout can take barhopping to a new level.

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Lee Harris

Friends enjoying the falafel contest at Cafe Natasha's Kabob International

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Cafe Natasha's Kabob International (3200 South Grand Boulevard; 314-771-3411) recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of its $10 all-you-can-eat hummus bar the only way it knew how: a falafel-eating contest.

"We decided to do the falafel-eating contest because it is the most popular part of our hummus bar," Bahrami says. Plus, hummus would just be too messy.

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Ashley Atkins

Ferguson McDonald's Reopens!

​ All fast-food junkies in the vicinity of Ferguson may now join hands and rejoice. Break out in song, put your lighters up and pour one out for the homies, because the Ferguson McDonald's (9131 West Florissant Road, Ferguson; 314-524-4366) has reopened its doors and is ready for business. The restaurant was closed while it remodeled to fit the corporation's new contemporary design.

"We remodeled the lobby, [added a] double drive-through, new parking lot and a couple of items redone in the back area," says Ysa Santiago, second assistant at the Ferguson McDonald's.

The addition of the second lane is intended to speed up the transaction process, freeing customers from worry about not-so-fresh fries. The restaurant now also provides customers with access to two flat-screen TVs and free Wi-Fi service.

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Chrissy Wilmes

Chris Williams of Franco studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York.

​Last week Eater asked chefs if they thought culinary school was worth the time and expense for aspiring chefs. The answer was a resounding "probably not."

The discussion made us wonder how well-educated some of St. Louis' favorite chefs are, so we culled the archives for some answers.

Peio Aramburu of Bistro 1130: "I went to culinary school in San Sebastián, Spain. It was a three-year program that included cooking skills, management and front of house. The emphasis was on cooking, though, because San Sebastián is renowned for food."

Chris Williams of Franco: "The CIA."

Marc Baltes of the Pi Pizzerias: "I went to CIA in Hyde Park. School was good, but I learned more in my six-month internship than in the eighteen months of classes."

Reine Bayoc of SweetArt Bakeshop: "I graduated from SLU with a degree in English and French."

Chris Bork of Blood and Sand : "I attended Westminster Kingsway College in London."

Steven Caravelli of Entre and the Mud House: "First, earn a degree in journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia while working in a gourmet shop. Over the course of the next six years, work days as a bank teller and nights in the kitchen at Chez Leon while writing the occasional article for Sauce until there's a full-time position available at the restaurant. Make a stop at a local culinary school for one semester."

Miguel Carretero of Guido's: "I went to college for a short amount of time, but I was trying to run a restaurant at the same time. I opened my first restaurant at age eighteen, a little pizza place on Morganford. I just couldn't balance both."

John Caton of Benton Park Cafe: "I attended the University of Missouri-Columbia. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in the hotel and restaurant management program."

Colleen Clawson of Big Sky Cafe: "I went to North Park University for fine arts and philosophy. I showed up for classes at L'Hotellerie in Belgium while visiting friends."

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​Marketplace, NPR's business and finance program, commissioned a survey of tipping habits across the country.

The state-by-state results place Missouri more or less in the middle of the pack, with an average tip of 19.4% on a $20 dinner bill. Most states fell into the 18%-21% range, with New Hampshire the clear outlier at 24.6%.

Take this survey with a handful of salt, though. It appears the Missouri results were based on a scant four respondents. Indeed, several states have no data because not enough people replied to the survey.

What do you think, Gut Check readers? Does not-quite 20% seem about right to you? All things being equal -- that is, your restaurant experience is neither so wonderful nor so terrible to warrant a greatly increased or reduced tip -- what are you tipping these days?

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Fish! Coming soon to a taco near you?

​The end of the year always brings a slew of articles heralding what the hot food and restaurant trends of next year will be. How accurate do these pieces turn out? Well, go back twelve months and see how many predicted that 2010 would be "the year of the fish taco" because that's what Nation's Restaurant News has declared.

The article cites a study by a firm called Technomic, which found that he number of fish tacos on restaurant menus rose 22.5 percent in the first half of 2010, compared with the first half of 2009."

Dramatic! Until you look at the raw numbers, that is: "Fish tacos were mentioned on menus 109 times in the first half of 2010, compared with 89 times a year earlier." Then again, I don't know if I want to question a survey that is this precise:

Of those menu mentions, 40.2 percent promised grilled fish tacos, but fried fish tacos likely beat them out. Of all the menu mentions, 22.8 percent actually said the fish tacos were fried, 21.7 percent said they were "crisp," 6.5 percent mentioned the word "battered," and 5.4 percent used "breaded" as a descriptor.

OpenTable has a 90% share of the online reservations market.

​Those who enjoy geeky inside-baseball looks at the restaurant business must read the recent post by Mark Pastore (via Grub Street).More >>

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Get used to this.

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Nation's Restaurant News (via Eater) looks at the hot restaurant trends for 2011, as determined by restaurant-marketing consultancy Andrew Freeman & Co. What will be the trend of next year, according to Andrew Freeman?

"If I had one trend -- one trend -- of the year that I could predict, that's why it's in the No. 1 position, this would be the trend for pie," he said.

Well, if nothing else, these guys will be happy.

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Ian Froeb

Delicious? Yes. Trendy? No.

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The National Restaurant Association has released its annual survey (link PDF) asking chefs nationwide for the year's top trends. The top trend, with nearly 88% of respondents saying it's "hot," is locally grown produce. The #2 trend is locally sourced meat and seafood, and #3 is sustainability.

So I, staunch defender of all things local and sustainable, am rejoicing, right? Not really. I mean, it's good that restaurants are paying attention to these issues, but I'll be more impressed if, say, five years from now, restaurants continue to pay attention to these issues -- not because they're trendy, but because they're important.

In all, the survey ranks the hotness of 214 individual items. At the very bottom, with only 14% of respondents saying that it's "hot," is...crème brûlée. Unfortunately, for those of us -- namely, me -- who would like this dessert banished from menus, 54% of respondents said crème brûlée is a "perennial favorite."

Though the cupcake trend shows no signs of slowing down in St. Louis, cupcakes didn't fare  well on the survey. They ranked #191 on the survey, with only 25% of respondents saying they remain hot and 52% claiming they are "yesterday's news."