A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
by Marlena de Blasi
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marlena de BlasiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-27
ISBN: 0345481097
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
Book Review: another charming travel adventure by De Blasi
Summary: 5 Stars
If you can, read Marlena De Blasi's earlier book "A Thousand Days in Venice" before reading this one. I was glad I knew about De Blasi's life in the U.S. and Venice, and how she met and married her "Stranger" as she calls her Venetian husband Fernando. Fernando has a tendency to melancholy and melodrama. He feels trapped by his past of unhappiness and his stifling job in a bank. Marlena is horrified when he comes home and announces that he has quit his secure, life-long job. She's a city girl, in love with Venice, and he has decided to move to a rural Tuscan village. But Marlena is also adaptable and adventurous, and makes the most of the beautiful Tuscan countryside, amazing food experiences (she is a former chef and food writer), and people who embrace her and make her feel welcome. I expected a book like "Under the Tuscan Sun", where the writer has buckets of money and views the locals as humorous bumpkins and overpriced servants, but De Blasi becomes close to the natives of her new home and learns about the privations of their past and the sorrows of their present (the subtitle of the book is "A Bittersweet Adventure"). She falls in love with the "Duke", who was born in the building her new apartment is in and who remembers the hunger of the war years. He takes the younger couple under his wing and teaches them the lessons that go with the food De Blasi loves: during the hungry periods, chestnuts were all the Tuscans had to eat. They ground the shells for coffee, and made a paste of the nutmeats and water, and baked it into cakes. There was no olive oil, honey, or cream to make it sumptuous. Soldiers returning to their home were not feted by their families with the roasting of the fatted calf, but with starvation. They ate the grass. Marlena reveals that money is tight for her and Fernando, $75.00 per week must cover everything. There is worry in the winter as the woodpile is depleted too quickly, and the bread is set to rise under the bedcovers, the only warm place in the house! They harvest grapes and olives with their new friends, learn to prepare wild boar, and learn to love the land. If you love food and travel, read this book!
Summary of A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
They had met and married on perilously short acquaintance, she an American chef and food writer, he a Venetian banker. Now they were taking another audacious leap, unstitching their ties with exquisite Venice to live in a roughly renovated stable in Tuscany.Once again, it was love at first sight. Love for the timeless countryside and the ancient village of San Casciano dei Bagni, for the local vintage and the magnificent cooking, for the Tuscan sky and the friendly church bells. Love especially for old Barlozzo, the village mago, who escorts the newcomers to Tuscany?s seasonal festivals; gives them roasted country bread drizzled with just-pressed olive oil; invites them to gather chestnuts, harvest grapes, hunt truffles; and teaches them to caress the simple pleasures of each precious day. It?s Barlozzo who guides them across the minefields of village history and into the warm and fiercely beating heart of love itself.
A Thousand Days in Tuscany is set in one of the most beautiful places on earth?and tucked into its fragrant corners are luscious recipes (including one for the only true bruschetta) directly from the author?s private collection.
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