A thousand days in Tuscany: a bittersweet adventure
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Language:
English
Description
American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life. In search of the rhythms of country living, the couple moves to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. In this patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio collide, there is much to feed de Blasi's two passions--food and love. We accompany the couple as they harvest grapes, gather chestnuts, forage for wild mushrooms, and climb trees in the cold of December to pick olives, one by one. Their routines are not that different from those of villagers centuries earlier. They are befriended by the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain. His fascinating stories lead de Blasi more deeply inside the soul of Tuscany. Together they visit sacred festivals and taste just-pressed olive oil, drizzled over roasted country bread, and squash blossoms, battered and deep-fried and sprayed with sea-salted water. In a cauldron set over a wood fire, they braise beans in red wine, and a stew of wild boar simmers overnight in the ashes of their hearth. Barlozzo shares his knowledge of Italian farming traditions, ancient health potions, and artisanal food makers, but he has secrets he doesn't share, and one of them concerns the beautiful Floriana, whose illness teaches Marlena that happiness is truly a choice. Like the pleasurable tastes and textures of a fine meal, A Thousand Days in Tuscany is as satisfying as it is enticing. The author's own recipes are included. An American chef and food and wine journalist, Marlena de Blasi has written five memoirs, a novel, and two books about the regional foods of Italy. She lives with her husband in the Umbrian hilltown of Orvieto. Her work has been translated into twenty-six languages. The scent of them is enough to send up a short, sharp thrill in a hungry person. Seething hot beauties, they repose in a great unruly pile on the white linen. The yellow of the naked blossoms shows through the gilt sheaths of their crackling skin. Skin thin as Venetian glass, I think. But I'm far away from Venice. We live in Tuscany, now. As of this morning, we live in Tuscany. I say it breezily to myself as though it was all in a day's work. Yesterday Venice. Today, San Casciano dei Bagni. And six hours after arrival, here I am already in a kitchen. In the small, steamy kitchen of the local bar watching two white-hatted, pink-smocked cooks preparing antipasti for what seems to have become a village festival. The gorgeous things they're cooking are zucchini blossoms, fat and velvety, almost as wide and long as lilies. And the frying dance is precise: drag a blossom quickly through the nearly liquid batter, let the excess drain back into the bowl, lay the blossom gently in the wide, low-hipped pot of hot, very hot shimmering oil. Another blossom and another. Twelve at a time in each of four pots. The blossoms are so light that, as a crust forms on one side, they bob about in the oil and turn themselves over and over until a skimmer is slid in to rescue them, to lay them for a moment on thick brown paper. The paper is then used as a sling to transport the blossoms to a linen-lined tray. One of the cooks fills a red glass bottle with warm, sea-salted water. She fits a metal sprayer onto the bottle and, holding it at arm's length, spritzes the gold blossoms with the salty water. The hot skins hiss and the perfume of them is whipped up and out into the moist June Tuscan breeze. Pan-to-hand-to-mouth food, these are sustenance for the twelve-minute interval before supper, and so when the first hundred are ready, the cook, the one called Bice, hands me the tray and says 'vai,' 'go' without looking up. A kitchen directive from one colle...
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Contributors:
ISBN:
9781565123922
9781565125902
9780345481092
9781565125902
9780345481092
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | 4c18d895-dc0c-086b-a851-fb72fa1e264a |
---|---|
Grouping Title | thousand days in tuscany a bittersweet adventure |
Grouping Author | marlena de blasi |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2024-05-06 20:53:24PM |
Last Indexed | 2024-05-07 22:31:55PM |
Solr Fields
accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
De Blasi, Marlena
author2-role
hoopla digital
author_display
De Blasi, Marlena
display_description
American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life. In search of the rhythms of country living, the couple moves to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. In this patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio collide, there is much to feed de Blasi's two passions--food and love. We accompany the couple as they harvest grapes, gather chestnuts, forage for wild mushrooms, and climb trees in the cold of December to pick olives, one by one. Their routines are not that different from those of villagers centuries earlier. They are befriended by the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain. His fascinating stories lead de Blasi more deeply inside the soul of Tuscany. Together they visit sacred festivals and taste just-pressed olive oil, drizzled over roasted country bread, and squash blossoms, battered and deep-fried and sprayed with sea-salted water. In a cauldron set over a wood fire, they braise beans in red wine, and a stew of wild boar simmers overnight in the ashes of their hearth. Barlozzo shares his knowledge of Italian farming traditions, ancient health potions, and artisanal food makers, but he has secrets he doesn't share, and one of them concerns the beautiful Floriana, whose illness teaches Marlena that happiness is truly a choice. Like the pleasurable tastes and textures of a fine meal, A Thousand Days in Tuscany is as satisfying as it is enticing. The author's own recipes are included. An American chef and food and wine journalist, Marlena de Blasi has written five memoirs, a novel, and two books about the regional foods of Italy. She lives with her husband in the Umbrian hilltown of Orvieto. Her work has been translated into twenty-six languages. The scent of them is enough to send up a short, sharp thrill in a hungry person. Seething hot beauties, they repose in a great unruly pile on the white linen. The yellow of the naked blossoms shows through the gilt sheaths of their crackling skin. Skin thin as Venetian glass, I think. But I'm far away from Venice. We live in Tuscany, now. As of this morning, we live in Tuscany. I say it breezily to myself as though it was all in a day's work. Yesterday Venice. Today, San Casciano dei Bagni. And six hours after arrival, here I am already in a kitchen. In the small, steamy kitchen of the local bar watching two white-hatted, pink-smocked cooks preparing antipasti for what seems to have become a village festival. The gorgeous things they're cooking are zucchini blossoms, fat and velvety, almost as wide and long as lilies. And the frying dance is precise: drag a blossom quickly through the nearly liquid batter, let the excess drain back into the bowl, lay the blossom gently in the wide, low-hipped pot of hot, very hot shimmering oil. Another blossom and another. Twelve at a time in each of four pots. The blossoms are so light that, as a crust forms on one side, they bob about in the oil and turn themselves over and over until a skimmer is slid in to rescue them, to lay them for a moment on thick brown paper. The paper is then used as a sling to transport the blossoms to a linen-lined tray. One of the cooks fills a red glass bottle with warm, sea-salted water. She fits a metal sprayer onto the bottle and, holding it at arm's length, spritzes the gold blossoms with the salty water. The hot skins hiss and the perfume of them is whipped up and out into the moist June Tuscan breeze. Pan-to-hand-to-mouth food, these are sustenance for the twelve-minute interval before supper, and so when the first hundred are ready, the cook, the one called Bice, hands me the tray and says 'vai,' 'go' without looking up. A kitchen directive from one colle...
format_category_eh
Books
eBook
eBook
format_eh
Book
eBook
eBook
id
4c18d895-dc0c-086b-a851-fb72fa1e264a
isbn
9780345481092
9781565123922
9781565125902
9781565123922
9781565125902
itype_eh
ADULT BOOK
LEAP 28 Day Book
LEAP 28 Day Book
last_indexed
2024-05-08T04:31:55.892Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
primary_isbn
9781565123922
publishDate
2004
2005
2005
publisher
Algonquin Books
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Ballantine Books
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Ballantine Books
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Autobiography
Cooking, Italian -- Tuscan style
Electronic books
Food -- Italy -- Tuscany
Italy
Tuscany (Italy) -- Social life and customs
Cooking, Italian -- Tuscan style
Electronic books
Food -- Italy -- Tuscany
Italy
Tuscany (Italy) -- Social life and customs
title_display
A thousand days in Tuscany : a bittersweet adventure
title_full
A Thousand Days in Tuscany : A Bittersweet Adventure [electronic resource] / Marlena De Blasi
A thousand days in Tuscany : a bittersweet adventure / by Marlena de Blasi
A thousand days in Tuscany : a bittersweet adventure / by Marlena de Blasi
title_short
A thousand days in Tuscany
title_sub
a bittersweet adventure
topic_facet
Autobiography
Cooking, Italian
Electronic books
Food
Social life and customs
Tuscan style
Cooking, Italian
Electronic books
Food
Social life and customs
Tuscan style
Solr Details Tables
item_details
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ils:.b16143668 | .i27308273 | Wallingford Adult Nonfiction | 945.5 DE BLASI | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | waan | |||||
ils:.b16143668 | .i32428819 | Orange/Case Adult Nonfiction Book | 641.5945 DeBlasi | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | oran | |||||
ils:.b16143668 | .i40769616 | West Haven Main Adult Non-fiction | 641.5945 DEB | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | wman | |||||
ils:.b16143668 | .i4763988x | Old Saybrook/Acton Adult Non-Fiction | 641.594 DE BLASI | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | osan | |||||
ils:.b16143668 | .i40769628 | West Haven Ora Mason Adult Non-fiction | 641.5945 DEB | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | woan | |||||
ils:.b16143668 | .i40700057 | North Haven Adult Nonfiction | 914.55 De Blasi | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | nhan | |||||
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hoopla:MWT15983642 | Online Hoopla Collection | Online Hoopla | eBook | eBook | 1 | false | true | Hoopla | https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15956833?utm_source=MARC&Lid=hh4435 | Available Online | |||
ils:.b24173228 | .i69174775 | Lyme Adult Nonfiction | 945.5 DEB | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | lyan | |||||
ils:.b24173228 | .i5404117x | Mitchell College Book Stacks | TX723.2 .T86 D36 2005 | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | mcg | |||||
ils:.b24173228 | .i61054938 | North Haven Adult Nonfiction | 945.5 De Blasi, Marlena | 1 | false | false | On Shelf | nhan |
record_details
Bib Id | Format | Format Category | Edition | Language | Publisher | Publication Date | Physical Description | Abridged |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b16143668 | Book | Books | 1st ed | English | Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill | 2004 | 325 p. ; 19 cm. | |
hoopla:MWT15983642 | eBook | eBook | English | Algonquin Books | 2004 | 1 online resource (325 pages) | ||
ils:.b24173228 | Book | Books | Ballantine Books trade pbk ed. | English | Ballantine Books | 2005 | 351 pages ; 19 cm |
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ils:.b16143668 | .i4763988x | On Shelf | On Shelf | false | true | true | false | false | false | 9999 | ||
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