From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home

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I slid across the marble floor at breakneck speed to be the first to grab the communal phone that hung on a pillar in the center of the living room. In the memoir, Tembi tracks three summers spent in Sicily after Saro’s death (incluidng one summer with her whole entire family, like in the show). The author of From Scratch , she lives in Los Angeles with her young daughter, but can be found each summer on the island of Sicily.

Good thing, too, because this is not one I would have picked up and read, given my own choosing algorithms.Eventually, they reconciled with Saro’s family just as he faced a formidable cancer that would consume all their dreams.

We passed Michelangelo’s David and Donatello’s Judith Slaying Holofernes , and the play of shadows danced across his face. My irritation was thinly veiled because now I was focused on Caroline eating the last creamy cluster of risotto.

The grainy but wispy jazz vocals of Paolo Conte came through the speakers, the dessert case was nearly empty save a single portion of tiramisù. Then I watched as the snow fell further and melted away as it landed on my scuffed boots, the chill of the marble steps beneath me penetrating the soles of my feet. By the end of the dinner, I was in rapture, satiated, giddy, light-headed with the possibility that Saro was boyfriend material. In the tradition of “Like Water For Chocolate,” “Scratch” is a recipe book and love story that is told through cooking a meal. I loved carrying it around town even if it was big enough to contain only a hairbrush, a copy of my passport, one lipstick, and a crinkled Baci Perugina chocolate wrapper with the Oscar Wilde quote “To love oneself is the beginning of a love affair that will last a lifetime.