... and, of the three Italy-related books I read, Paula Butturini's Keeping The Feast probably did the best job in getting me in the mood. But that was pretty easy as to do as things did not go quite well (in fact, horribly wrong) for the characters from The Comfort of Strangers who visited Venice and there was not very much local flavor in the otherwise quite enjoyable The Imperfectionists about employees of a Rome-based English newspaper. So while neither of those books were intended as a travelogue, Butturini's memoir confirm all the things that I have heard from everyone it seems about Italy... that it's a place that is quite hard not to fall in love with.
I didn't get too far into this book before realizing I should keep my Rome travel book and a pen/paper handy to take some notes about great views of the cities are charming squares. I only wish Butturini gave out more details, but I'm guessing I could hardly blame her for not wanting to give all the city's secrets... and beside, while Italy and Rome are clearly one of the "loves" in the books subtitle of "One Couple's Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy," this too was not meant to be a travel memoir.
But when it comes to that subtitled "love" and "food" in Rome one place that I will certainly be checking out is the Campo de' Fiori which hosts a daily open-air farmer's market each morning and restaurants and shops that will likely take us a bit off the tourist trail, giving us a taste, figuratively and literally, of the lives of the Romans. Butturini's daily trips to Campo de' Fiori were her escape during some very challenging times... at one point she breaks down in many pages a quite lengthy list of the fresh-from-the-farm ingredients that landed on her dining table that very day. Butturini's love of fresh and simple food and her love in buying and preparing it only makes wish there was a cookbook sequel to this book.
With "love" and "food" takne care of the, those challenging times is where the "healing" part of the book comes in. Butturini and her husband were both ex-pat journalists in Europe (which made this a nice segue from The Imperfectionists) and both faced some seriously traumatic events during the fall of the Communism in Eastern Europe.
Just weeks before their wedding, Butturini was beaten by police during a protest and just weeks after the wedding, Butturini's husband John was shot and nearly killed by a sniper. The experience sent John into a serious depression, a condition that Butturini was already quite familiar as her mother suffered from post-partum (creating a challenging mother-daughter relationship) and depression throughout her entire life. Much of the book is devoted to the living with someone with depression and the debilitating and devastating impact of the illness on not only the person suffering from it, but also other family members who are so desperate (and, at times, justifiably frustrated) over what to do regarding their loved one. (I also noted the location of the square where Butturini has a public "snap out of it!" breakdown while on a walk with her husband).
With the distance of a decade plus from many of the events in her life and as a journalist, there is a certain degree of detachment and uber-objectivity in Butturini's re-telling of her story and this time in her life. Likewise, the book does have kind of a split personality with these very serious episodes about depression countered with her love affair with husband, food, and life in Italy... and at times they seem to be fighting against each other.
While I was always pretty fascinated by whatever Butturini was relating, they do each come in heavy doses. I am guessing "foodies" may yearn for her to get back to her mouth-watering tales of power and comfort of food, while those who grew up with food as sustenance not socializing or art, might tire of Butturini's rapturous love letters to each and every delectable ingredient in her past, present, and future... though coming more from the latter camp where my childhood dinners were typically a 10-15 minute, mostly silent affair, I didn't mind it at all.
Thanks for the review, and while you're in Rome, DON'T miss La Fonte della Salute Gelateria at Via Cardinal Marmaggi, 2-6 (just off the Viale Trastevere and just a couple blocks from the Tiber), which has some of the best ice cream in town. I swear by a mix of three flavors: chocolate, coffee and rice; my husband loves the amareno (cherry vanilla) and the stracciatella...
Posted by: Paula Butturini | Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 09:14 AM