A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure [Paperback]

Marlena de Blasi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From its opening scene of an impromptu alfresco village feast of fried zucchini blossoms, fennel-roasted pork, and pudding made from the cream of a local blue-eyed cow, this memoir of the seasons in a small Tuscan village is rich with food, weather, romance and, above all, life. De Blasi continues the adventures begun in her A Thousand Days in Venice, as she and her husband, Fernando, leave Venice for Tuscany in search of "a place that still remembers real life... sweet and salty... each side of life dignifying the other." Fortunately, the two are adopted by Barlozzo, an elderly local eager to share his knowledge of the old ways. He introduces them to the local customs: grape harvesting, truffle hunting, bread baking, etc. Although the book teems with food references, including recipes for intriguing traditional dishes, de Blasi is more than a sunny regional food writer—she digs into the meaning of life. As she fights Fernando's periodic depressions and brings him back to joy, gains Barlozzo's trust and love, learns his troubling lifelong secrets and comes to terms with the death of a beloved friend, she immerses her readers in life's poignancy, brevity and wonder.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Readers who enjoyed de Blasi's earlier work, A Thousand Days in Venice (2002), may be startled that the author has moved from Venice to Tuscany. Still much in love with the man for whom she left everything, de Blasi embarks on an idyllic, if hardworking, Tuscan life. The couple purchases an old farmhouse and is chagrined that it's not conveyed in the condition promised. Their neighbors welcome them to the community with a groaning board featuring all manner of Tuscan foods and capped off with a dessert that only hours earlier had been milked from a "blue-eyed" cow. As in her earlier work, most chapters close with recipes, ranging in complexity from braised pork stew that serves as both a pasta sauce and an entree to simple bruschetta, toasted bread topped with local olive oil. Thanks to de Blasi's style of rendering conversations first in Italian, then English, a careful reader can quickly pick up some useful conversational Italian. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (September 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345481097
• ISBN-13: 978-0345481092
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.8 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #88 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > Italian
  • #89 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Travel

More About the Author

Marlena de Blasi has been a chef, a journalist, a food and wine consultant, and a restaurant critic. She is the author of two cookbooks, Regional Foods of Northern Italy (a James Beard Foundation Award finalist) and Regional Foods of Southern Italy. She and her husband, Fernando, now direct gastronomic tours through Tuscany and Umbria.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Enjoyable than Frances Mayes' Books, September 15, 2005

By 

Italian Dreamer (Herndon, VA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure (Hardcover)

Having lived and worked in Italy during the 60s and early 70s, I found Marlena De Blasi's recounting of her time spent in a very small town in Tuscany more in sync with what actually happens in such a place. It was easy for me to bring forth a picture in my mind and actually feel as if I was there. Mrs. Blasi's characterizations of persons encountered was complete.

I would highly recommend "A Thousand Days in Venice" as an accurate interpretation of what happens in Italy on a daily basis.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Feast for the Heart and the Soul........., July 4, 2005

By 

Susan Desisto (Orange, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure (Hardcover)

Do yourself a favor and read de Blasi's "A Thousand Days in Venice" before embarking on the sequel "A Thousand Days in Tuscany". It is not required reading, but you would be missing out on a delightful and unusual love story which sets up this book so perfectly.

Do not mistake this book for a cook book. It is so much more. De Blasi's writing is a feast of sumptuous descriptions of not only food, but life in Tuscany and the joy of knowing she is living her life exactly as she wants to. After reading the book, I was taken aback to find how strongly I wanted to meet this person and be a part of her circle of friends. She is as warm and senuous as the olive oil drizzled on the crusty, roasted, tuscan breads. This book could have been filled with photographs, but they weren't necessary. De Blasi's descriptions will fill your mind's eye with amazing visuals of life in rural Tuscany. I hope when you finish the book(s) you will feel, like I do, that your heart and soul have been amptly nourished .... and your taste-buds truly inspired!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars De Blasi's Tuscany...a peaceful, descriptive masterpiece, March 16, 2006

By 

R. Nicholson - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure (Paperback)

A small gem!

Every once in a while a book comes along that really moves me with its quiet beauty; "A Thousand Days in Tuscany" fits easily into this category.

Wonderfully written and easy to read with its soft descriptive prose; the words transport you from your comfortable sofa to a magnificent area of Italy that is renowned for its people and its unique landscape.

The book follows two new arrivals to the Tuscan region of Italy and tells of their interactions with the local residents; people who soon become part of their daily routine. Each chapter is a small vignette describing a situation (usually with a local personage), a trip and, above all, food; in fact all chapters get around to the discussion of, or preparation of food. Most chapters end with a recipe for the main dish that was describe in the chapter involved.

All in all, a warm, quiet and beautifully descriptive short book about an area of the world that all of us would probably love to visit at least once in our lifetime. Highly recommended.