My Home Sweet Rome by Sari Gilbert

I am an armchair traveler.  So I do my traveling through books from people who either live in or have visited all the places I want to go.  Enter Rome.  A city with a lot of history, art, and delicious food, it's definitely a stop for most travelers.  But Gilbert takes it a little further.  She lives in Rome, and has done so for decades, giving her an experience that most have not had.

While in college, Gilbert moved to Rome to continue her schooling and then pursue a career in journalism.  Fond of Rome and the opportunities it offered to her, she stayed and worked for several newspapers and as a freelance journalist.  This offered her the chance to talk to many important people, cover interesting stories, and just appreciate all that Rome had to share.  In this book she also talks about Roman/Italian lifestyles, history, government and a myriad of other topics. 

Gilbert is a very honest narrator.  She doesn't hold back on any topics, including those of her own personal life.  Which can be disconcerting at times.  She's also very honest about the people she meets and has relationships with.  I actually wondered at times if she had changed people's names as to avoid getting them angry, because she is brutally honest.  But it offers a very clear look at Italy and some of its people and their habits.  And Gilbert knows a lot of people because of the line of work she is in, so it's just not neighbors and friends, but also politicians and some celebrities that she writes about in this book.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed most of this book.  I found the information on the politics, history, lifestyle and many other topics fascinating.  What I didn't find so fascinating was the amount of detail given to her romantic exploits.  While some was useful for seeing how Roman lifestyles worked, others were just a bit gratuitous and detracted from the book as a whole.  But, since I could just skim past those sections it didn't bother me too bad.  She does put a lot of detail in and I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the food.  It made me want to just make a plate of pasta and find a good hunk of cheese to gobble down.  Maybe a glass of wine too.  And now I'm hungry.  Some time is given to the landscape and scenery of Italy and Rome too, although I would have definitely enjoyed hearing more about it as I'm sure the same level of detail would have been given in the writing.

Definitely an interesting book on living in Rome.  It offered a unique perspective from someone who's been living a Roman life for awhile and isn't afraid to tell it how it is.

**This book was received as a free advanced reader's copy**

My Home Sweet Rome
Copyright 2013
328 pages

A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena De Blasi

This is a love story more than a travel story.  And not all of those thousand days are spent in Venice.  I actually read the sequel to this book "A Thousand Days in Tuscany" before I read this book.  I really don't think it matters what order you read them in though.

De Blasi was in Venice for a job.  With a few friends she was scoping out some wine bars, working on an article.  When she goes to leave though she's told by the owner that she has a phone call.  It turns out to be a man who has admired her from afar.  Many phone calls later she agrees to meet him, and this stranger becomes a new journey in life for her.

Peter, I mean Fernando, looks like Peter Sellers.  No really, De Blasi reminds us of this nearly ever chapter.  He seems sullen and moody to me and I'm not sure what the attraction is, but she seems to like him well enough.  De Blasi herself really likes the physical things in life.  Food, fabric, and other such novelties.  Which I can't blame her for.  I'm obsessed with the same things myself.  And I think she's brave for leaving most everything behind to live somewhere else, although I do think it was a little foolhardy.  I would have liked to hear more about the other people they interacted with, but it didn't get beyond little snippets on anyone else.

So there actually wasn't much of Venice described.  There was some, and a lot of description about food, but overall this was a love story and the story of how she met her husband.  Not what I was expecting but at least the small amount of travel and food kept me through it. I did like the descriptions of the food, De Blasi definitely deserves her spot as a food writer as she is able to write about food in an evocative way.  You can almost taste it.   It's a small book, and the back of it actually has a bunch of recipes and a section on what to do in Venice.  There's also a reading group section. 

Not a book for those looking to learn about Venice I think, but if you want a little love story with some food, this is probably going to be up your alley.

A Thousand Days In Venice
Copyright 2002
272 pages

A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena De Blasi

This is a book about food.  Really.  Ok, well maybe it's a book about Italian culture too.  But there's a lot of food in it.

Three years after marrying her husband in Venice, Marlena is apprehensive when they sell everything and move to Tuscany.  Here they have no job, are renting a house, but they quickly become adapted to village life and make a few friends.  One of these is a man who used to live in their house long ago and is a great source of help on projects from making a bread oven to harvesting grapes.  And of course, the entire time that they're living there, there is a lot of food and cooking going on.

Marlena describes her husband in favorable terms most of the time.  But does share that he has a quicksilver aspect of his personality which gets him gloomy.  In fact, most of the Italian men Marlena encounters (and one Russian) seem to have this trait.  She herself, while the narrator, doesn't go beyond describing herself in terms of clothes and the food she's eating.  She is very focused on clothes.  In fact, the person who gets the most description is probably Barlozzo, the man who used to live in their house.  He is kind of a funny character but seems to have a good heart.

I'm not sure where the thousand days part of this book came into play.  It seems to span only a year.  I'm guessing it was just a naming convention passed on from one of her other books.  I loved all the descriptions of the food (and the recipes included are mouth watering as well).  It was really that part of the book that shined.  She had good material to work with though with all the local produce and markets.  The actual renovation of the house and grounds I wasn't as interested in.  But her stories of the people in the village were good and you really cared about what happened to the people and how their lives were going.

A nice book about travel/living in Italy in the Tuscany region.  I'm sure most who enjoy other such books will take to this one with no problem.  It seems to fit that whole genre of woman moves to Tuscany and finds love and food.

A Thousand Days in Tuscany
Copyright 2004
325 pages

Living In A Foreign Language by Michael Tucker

This could have been such a beautiful book. Too bad the author turns you off in the first part of the book by alienating about 99% of the population. "There were other people--regular people--but you can't imagine how easy it is to tell the difference." And "I mean it's hard enough being a star, but when there's nobody there to worship you, it's damn near impossible." And plenty more just like that.

Michael Tucker and his wife Jill have been tv stars for awhile (LA Law I think?) and after the show ends they find themselves floating adrift. But then, at a birthday party in Italy, they discover a little villa called The Rustico that they fall in love with. They buy it and start changing it, having friends over and finding great food in the area. They also decide to go back to work and so spend their time between the States and Italy.

I've already mentioned my distaste for the author's ego. Maybe he was a really good actor, I don't know, I've never seen him in anything, but it's still not flattering to have quite that much conceit. Although at least he was impressed with his wife and you can tell that he appreciated her. I guess that's a redeeming point in his favor. She herself is only described through his eyes, but she seems like a very focused individual. And they had a ton of friends. One, Caroline, seems to be a helper/surrogate daughter and we definitely know she's Korean, as that's how Tucker described her mostly. But the rest of the people were so numerous that a really great description is never given.

Although that's completely different for the food. That's the best part of this book. I may not like Tucker but he can write about food. All his descriptions of the courses and pasta and deli that he incorporated into the book made me salivate. I wanted to hop a plane to Italy and just eat until I burst. There were stories that weren't about food, but food was definitely the focus. I was surprised by the amount of cursing in this book. It didn't start out that way, but by the end f-bombs are dropped all over the place. Which doesn't bother me but I know a lot of people don't appreciate reading it and so I thought I'd provide a warning.

I can't say that I wholly enjoyed this book. Just the descriptions of food. For those comparing it to Under the Tuscan Sun, I can see similarities, but it is definitely a different kind of book.

Living in a Foreign Language
Copyright 2007
252 pages

On the Noodle Road by Jen Lin-Liu

**This review is part of the Amazon Vine Program**

I love noodles. I could eat them every day whether it be macaroni and cheese, alfredo, filled pastas, lo-mein, well, you get the picture. There's something very comforting about them and it isn't a surprise that they are found in most cuisines around the world. But just how did they spread among all those cuisines is the question Lin-Liu attempts to answer in this book.

Lin-Liu, while living in China and working at her cooking school, decides to follow the Silk Road from China to Italy in search of where noodles originated and how they have persevered through the cultures. She'll go through all of China, Iran, Turkey, and many other countries before finally finishing in Italy. And she'll seek out noodles in each of these places although in some, they are harder to find. Additionally, this is a memoir of sorts that expresses Lin-Liu's troubles with her new marriage and search for herself in the relationship.

Lin-Liu and her husband aren't the only people featured in this book though. She encounters so many people in her travels that they are all included here as well. And she offers a commentary on their lives as they are bound by their customs and rules of the countries. She expresses her vehemence quite often at some of the traditions that bind women to their homes and their kitchens, even as she enjoys the tasty food that comes out of them. Her relationship with her husband is less interesting though, and while I can appreciate that she tried to make this a memoir in addition to food writing, I just don't think it was the right mix to make it interesting. I cared more about the food and who made it than I did about her personal life, right or wrong as that may be.

There was a lot of food in this book (recipes too). And the majority of the book was luckily about food, because as said before, I wasn't as interested in the memoir part of this book. I do think that China was probably my favorite region that Lin-Liu described. All of the noodle dishes sounded wonderful and I think I'll definitely make good use of that recipe section (all the recipes are at the end of the chapter for each respective country). Iran, the people she spoke with were interesting, but the food didn't hold as much appeal for me. The same goes for Turkey. And Italy wasn't described near as much as I thought it would be, considering they are known for their noodles. And while the writing was a little choppy, with less than smooth transitions between the countries, it was still approachable writing and easy to read. Lin-Liu writes like she probably talks, and it is easy to get absorbed, although long-winded at times.

I enjoyed the book but I don't see myself going back to it again and again (unless it's to use the recipes). It offered a unique perspective on noodle dishes and nice descriptions of foods for any foodie, but was a bit too meandering to be a repetitive read.

On The Noodle Road
Copyright 2013
384 pages