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

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She opened the door on the passenger side and crawled over the gearshift to take her place behind the wheel. And over the course of the night, as I fumbled through my kindergarten Italian, I stopped blushing, growing more and more confident with each conversation. In the tradition of “Like Water For Chocolate,” “Scratch” is a recipe book and love story that is told through cooking a meal. In Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or a death-in Tembi Locke's case, it is both. When we finally made it to Florence under the midday summer sun, we stumbled out of the bus near the church of San Lorenzo.

While reading, with tears rolling, I was amazed by how she was able to articulate how she was feeling and what her and Saro went through – and I felt it all. Certainly, Tembi didn't predict this turn of events for herself when she married her first husband Saro Gullo in 1995 — whose presence she felt on the set.

Attica said that her own daughter, who was five when Saro died, is finally getting to know her uncle.

Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro’s family and his origins, now she finds solace and nourishment—literally and spiritually—at her mother in law’s table. Sloane looked back to grab my hand just before we entered the outdoor terrace, where I could see at least ten to twelve Italians gathered in a smattering of duos and trios. As she put it in the book, "Sicily was the water and sun that fortified me to stand stronger in my life after loss. My actual stars would be much lower but I feel it's unfair to judge a book just because it's a type of book I dislike. She said he had “a vision of an us and greatness so effortlessly that it suddenly seemed as right as butter on bread.By the time I was old enough to understand who she was, I began to spend hours wondering about this woman, this hero, this person who had chosen a name for me before I had even taken my first breath. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. It is like life, at times very sad and I had to stop reading at times while grieving a personal loss. She launched her podcast, “Lifted,” which features dynamic women sharing their stories of what and who have lifted their lives. We learn almost nothing about the years of her marriage, the life or death of her father in law, their life after their daughter joined the family, or anything else that isn't about the author, the author's feelings, how inconvenienced the author was by having to care for other people, and how upset the author was by being widowed because somehow she never seemed to notice it had ever happened to anyone else.

First, Attica said it demonstrated that the sisters' parents had "intention" in selecting their daughters' names. A poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hour. By now Sherra and Gene had two children—my sister Attica was born three years after me—whom they took along with them as they each, in their own way, began to reconfigure their own idea of family. There is both great beauty to be found within loss, and also the opportunity for transformation for those who let life truly break them open.Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro's family, now she finds solace and nourishment – literally and spiritually – at her mother-in-law's table. I have unintentionallly put myself through the emotional ringer this month reading so many back to back books regarding death and grief, but it has turned out to be an incredibly cathartic experience for me. It’s easily one of my favorites that I’ve so far read this year, and it’s likely to make my “Top Books of 2021” list! I tumbled out onto Via dell’Acqua just after midnight, hypnotized by his skin, his food, how his hand had met the small of my back when we had said good-bye.

From Scratch is for anyone who has dared to reach for big love, fought for what mattered most, and those who needed a powerful reminder that life is. The first thing I did after walking up three flights of a narrow stone staircase to my three-person room was put my duffel down and get into line to use the telephone in the main entrance. She learns to heal in the most beautiful way—through the support of three generations of women—and yes, there’s Italian food.

I didn’t have my parents’ credit card in my wallet, and I wasn’t looking for a tryst with an Italian boy and trips to Paris once a month. Her talk, What Forty Steps Taught Me About Love and Grief , traces her journey as a cancer caregiver.