A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi

They forage for spring greens and truffles and harvest eggs from under chickens. We follow them when they harvest grapes for wine as well as figs, olives and chestnuts.

They become especially close to Floriana and old Barlozzo, who regales them with tales of the past of instructions on how to bake, build an outdoor oven, gather and forage and who imparts much of his wisdom. On the day they move in, the villagers gather around, and help them clean and unpack then there is an impromptu potluck party in the piazza around the town bar, with fired zucchini blossoms as the main feature. Her children are grown and settled now they are on their own grand adventure. Fernando has given up his job in a Venetian bank and they will be living on their small savings and Marlena's earnings for her writing. This begins with the arrival of American food writer Marlena, and her Venetian husband Fernando, in the small Tuscan village of San Casciano de Bagni, where they rent an ancient farmhouse, with no telephone, central heat, or television. Marlena de Blasi follows up her Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance, with her newest book, A Thousand Days in Tuscany.

The author's own recipes are included.Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann, Chanhassen (MN.) Librarian Like the pleasurable tastes and textures of a fine meal, A Thousand Days in Tuscany is as satisfying as it is enticing. 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. 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. 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. His fascinating stories lead de Blasi more deeply inside the soul of Tuscany. They are befriended by the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain. Their routines are not that different from those of villagers centuries earlier.

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. In this patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio collide, there is much to feed de Blasi's two passions-food and love. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. 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. American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life.

A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi