La Dolce Vita!
This is one of many memoirs written by Americans who have chosen to settle or spend a significant amount of time in Italy as they pursue "the sweet life". I find myself drawn to such books, since it allows me to rekindle the sweet memories of our stay in Bellagio, Italy and stroke the flames of a dream to ultimately settle in this magical land.
This is a follow-up book to a previous memoir in which the author first moved to Venice and fell in love with an Italian man. In this memoir, her husband enters early retirement upon giving up his financial job and they decide to relocate to Tuscan villiage where they rent a house without central heating, electricity and telephone connection. Unlike most main characters who escape to Italy purely in search of the sweet life, Marlena realizes alongwith the sweet comes the salty.
"We've come here to make a life scrubbed clean of clutter, a life that follows the rhythyms and rituals of this rural culture....We're hoping this is a place that still remembers real life...the hard parts and the joyful ones. Dolce e salata, sweet and salty...each side dignfying the other."
Ironically it is her Italian husband that has more idealistic expectations about the region in search of serenity, while Marlena recognizes that serenity is not geographically dependant. In her unique way, she reminds him to focus on the present rather than living life with regrets.
"Instead of worrying who's robbing you of what, worry about how you thieve yourself. You rob time, Fernando. How arrogent you are taking an evening like this one as though it was some sour cherry, spitting half its flesh into the dirt. Every time you pitch yourself back into the past you lose time."
They befriend their landlord Barlozzo, who helps assimilate them to their local neigbhors, customs and surrounding locale. The book is effectively organized seasonally, as the traditions and natural surroundings change dramatically with each season.
They soon discover that the soul of Tuscan life is food. "In Tuscany, the lessons are all about the food. As Barlozzo promised from that first day, for rural folk, food is the fundamental theme of their lives. It is different from that of the American who gets excited about the restaurant of the week or a holiday feast or a dinner party at which someone auditions a recipe from a just acquired cookbook.
Lunch and dinner here compose a twice-daily-said mass. After all, here in the countryside, some people still grow it, gather, forage and hunt for it."
With Barlozzo as their guide, they gather wild chesnuts and grapes, forage for wild mushrooms, and prepare a hunted boar.
Marlena takes local ingredients and transforms them into delectable dishes. Each chapter ends with several recipes spotlighting seasonal ingredients. She recognizes the true art and beauty of cooking. "Certainly good cooking is about flavor. About the liberation of flavor, the suspension of it, and finally, the release of it... For instance, to make basil pesto, one pounds garlic and basil to release their oils and essences. Then one captures, holds those flavors by suspending them in olive oil, forming an emulsion, a thick, smooth sauce. But this sauce has yet to rerelease those flavors one worked to liberate and suspend. The sauce needs heat...The contact with the heat intensifies the flavors of the sauce to its fullness."
The book provided a steady and relaxing read, closely imitating the pace of life in Tuscany. The author captured the close friendships, mouth-watering dishes and colorful local traditions/customs. While I enjoyed experiencing rural Tuscan life through her keen observations and vivid descriptions, I did not feel as strong a connection to her as I felt for other recent memoir authors.
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