On a visit to Venice, de Blasi meets a local bank manager who falls in love with her at first sight. After "the stranger" (as she coyly calls him throughout the book) pursues her back to her home in St. Louis, Mo., she agrees to return to Italy and marry him, leaving behind her grown children and her job as chef and partner in a cafe. Although the banker, Fernando, lives in a bunkerlike postwar condominium on the Lido rather than the Venetian palazzo of her dreams, and some of his European ideas about women clash with her American temperament, the relationship works. She survives his criticism of her housekeeping and his displeasure at her insistence on remaining a serious cook (in modern Italy "No one bakes bread or dolci or makes pasta at home," he tells her), and they marry. Then one day Fernando surprises her by announcing that he is quitting his job at the bank where he has worked for 26 years. They leave Venice, he espouses her interest in food and they now direct gastronomic tours of Tuscany and Umbria. De Blasi's breathless descriptions of her improbable love affair can be cloying, but she makes up for these excesses with her enchanting accounts of Venice, especially of the markets at the Rialto. She conjures up vivid images of produce "so sumptuously laid as to be awaiting Caravaggio" and picturesque scenes of the vendors, such as the egg lady who keeps her hens under her table, collects the eggs as soon as they are laid and wraps each one in newspaper, "twisting both ends so that the confection looks like a rustic prize for a child's party." In a final section entitled "Food for a Stranger," de Blasi (Regional Foods of Northern Italy) includes recipes for a few of the dishes with which she charmed the stranger.

Bookring Members (Started 5/17/04):
gypsyrose02 AUSTRALIA (SHIP INTL)
cestmoi CANADA (SHIP US/CAN)
hannahsc5CANADA (SHIP INTL)
nyassa UK (SHIP EUROPE)
leighspeak UK (SHIP INTL)
ecmwfinswe SWEDEN (SHIP INTL)
Zarylia POLAND/MN (SHIP INTL) MN- June to mid August, POLAND- after August
morpha OR (SHIP US)
EMA375 CA

Shipped to gypsyrose02!

received today as part of a bookring. looks really interesting. will get read asap and sent on its little journey.

im really sorry, but i just couldnt get into this. i read about 7 chapters and i was waiting for something to jump out at me. my mind kept wandering on to other things, which, to me, is a sign that im not enjoying it. so im sending it on its journey. its going into the post this afternoon. on its way to cestmoi.
thanks for adding me though!

Just arrived today. Looking forward to it :) Venice is one of the most hauntingly beautiful cities I've ever been to.

A feast for the senses. The food, the culture, the buildings, Fernando's and Marlena's story..all of them were luxurious and sensual. If you've been to Venice, you will be reunited with all that is wonderful and if you haven't, you will want to go.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm piggy-backing on Enza's turn in the ring. I will start this right away and send it on to hannahsc5 soon. Thanks!

Wonderful! I kept thinking that the book was getting better and better with each chapter, and was dreading that it might go downhill after the wedding. In fact, I loved it even more as I continued.

She does a luscious job of describing the scenes, the moods, the feelings.
One of my favourite paragraphs, right near the end:
"I pull an Aeronautica Militaire sweatshirt over one of Victoria's oldest Secrets, slip into Wellies. Fernando wears Ray Bans even in the dark, and we stumble across the road to watch the sea and the sky light up. In our folkloric costumes we are Maggion's first customers, and we take our paper tray of warm apricot cornetti and the old Bialetti coffee maker, steaming and sputtering, back to bed."

She is an incorrigible romantic and I LOVE it!! What a wonderful chapter of her life she has had the opportunity to live. I am so envious.

An important take-away for me was her attitude of being very open-minded, very open to seemingly outrageous ideas, the ability to go with the flow. I try very much to live my life this way, and I will remind myself of this book when I am challenged in this way in the future.

Thanks cestmoi for sneaking me into the ring! This will be off to hannahsc5 as soon as I get her address.

Released on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 at Post Office in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

Mailed to Hannahsc5 ... I wish it a safe journey!

Just started this as I received it in the mail last week. I am quite excited about it as it looks like a great read.

Love the fact that Ema375 left a wee note in the novel.

Sending this off to next in line as soon as I receive her address.

Can't say I loved this book as I wasn't inclined to finish it. A little slow for my liking.

Arrived today with perfect timing, as I also arrived today, from my holidays. I am very much looking forward to this, many thanks.

A really lovely book. I was particularly keen to read it because my grandfather was from Venice and I have been fortunate enough to have visited on a number of occasions. Without in any way becoming anything approaching a guide book, Marlena de Blasi manages to convey the spirit of the city. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with a love for Venice or who intends to visit.

On its way now to leighspeak

Thank you for passing this on to me, I received it this morning and I'm putting it in the order that I've received all my books this week. So this one is at the bottom of my pile but I'll get to it as quickly as I can. Thanks for enclosing the postcard of Winchester, nyassa. I've never been to Winchester, it looks rather pretty too :-)

A really lovely book to read and utterly romantic. I can in part relate to it, having come from a family that has moved around quite a bit - and it's quite easy to fall in love with Venice. I've been there, and it's just made me even more determined to return. Thanks for letting me take part in this ring, the recipes at the end of the book are worth photocopying.

I will send this out as soon as I hear from the next person on the list :-)

Released on Thursday, December 16, 2004 at about 7:00:00 AM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Postal Release in Controlled release, England United Kingdom.

RELEASE NOTES:

Being sent - part of a bookring

The book arrived safely to Sweden today. I'm really looking forward to reading it. Venice is a favourite city of mine.

Loved the descriptions of the city, the people Marlena met and the food, something for all the senses.

Warsaw/Poland - The book has safely arrived and (with some luck) I'll be able to finish it soon and pass it on. It looks good!

Warsaw/Poland - I'd like to say something deep and meaningfull and eloquent....but I'm not sure I could convey what I really mean and I might end up being corny, cliche, and silly. So what I will say it that this book got to me; it pulled at my heartstrings, you know the ones, the ones that get tugged everytime you watch a romantic comedy, listen to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, arrive in a new city, or sit in your favorite chair in your favorite coffee shop with a book, a latte, and a blueberry scone, just watching the people, the lovers, the business associates, the old men who have been coming here for coffee for as long as they've been friends, for as long as they can remember... It made me want to pack up and move to Venice, cook something incredibly delicious, or fall in love....maybe someday.....for now I'll just have to settle with a lovely book about a woman who did move to Venice, cook things so delicious I swear I could taste them, and fall in love with a stranger, a culture, a city... I love that this book was a true story.

Thanks for including me in the ring....I'll PM morpha for an address ASAP.

Update 30/01/05 - I've received an address from morpha but have decided to hold off on sending the book until my visit to the US in February. I thought it would be best to hold on to it because 1.) I trust the US mail system more and 2.) it will take less time to get there. I'll journal again when it's in the mail.

Update 25/02/05 - Sent off to morpha today. Enjoy!

I 've had this book for several weeks, but before I could even open it, it got lost somewhere under my bed. I finally found it yesterday and zoooomed my way through it.
What a wonderful book! Aside from taking place in my favorite city in the world, it was asensual feast of food and love. Reminds me a bit of the Japanese movie Tampopo, but without the camp.

Think of the bravery of this Italian man who has lived his entire life in the way that was expected of him, suddenly across the Piazza San Marco, he sees the profile of the woman of his dreams. Holding that image in his mind, he recognizes her again more than a year later in a small cafe and instantly falls in love. Somehow., launguage and culture barriers notwithstanding, he must persuade her to love him, too. He follows her to St. Louis. Finally convincing her to give up her job as a chef and partner in a cafe, her little gem of a house that she has just finished remodeling to perfection, move to Italy and marry him. I think I half fell in love with him too. The following is my most favorite moment of the book.

"Now the stranger begins unfastening my bustier, and his hands are beautiful, big, and warm, fumbling as they graze my skin through the soft lace. He begins brushing away crumbs from my decollete, from between my breasts. 'Cos'e questo? What is this? Your whole day is recorded here. We have evidence of burnt rye toast; two, perhaps three, kinds of cookies; focaccia; a mocha brownie -- it's all here archived inside your lingere,' he says tasting the few telltale bits. I laugh until I cry, and he says, 'And about those tears. How many times a day do you cry? Will you always be full of lacrime e bricole, full of tears and crumbs?' He presses me down into the cool plush of my bed and, when he kisses me, I taste my own tears mixed with the barest traces of ginger."

Think of the courage of this American woman who moves to a new culture, a new language, a new way of relating to other people, away from her grown children, her friends, to a bunker of a condo in initial squalor, to be with the man she has come to love in the city of dreams.

Gradually, she becomes adjusted to not having a job, a friend, a life. She is a foodie, living with a man who is not. Over time, the terrible condo becomes transformed into something beautiful. She haunts the Rialto market stalls, meets and befriends other foodies. The stranger is becoming a foodie, slowly over time. Life is good. The immense trail of paperwork is endured, and finally they marry. In many books, this would be the end of the story. Here it is not.

After their marriage, Fernando decides to quit his bank job and that they must leave Venice, where he has lived nearly all of the course of his stifled life. Marlena early on realized that she would have to let Fernando lead, not because his culture requires it, but because he had never had his chance to to make his own decisions before, whereas she had had many years of deciding on her own course.
It is as if they begin anew again and again. After a more than a year of searching, their dream home is found in a small village in Tuscany. Oh, no, I think, not another book about finding the perfect life in Tuscany. (Not that I dislike those books, but I wanted to read about Venice). Fortunately, it is there that the book ends. I come to realize, as Marlena does, that Venice will always be there, just a few hours drive away - there to visit whenever a dose of Venice is needed.

Arrived home safely! Thank you.

It is time to release this wonderful book for others to enjoy.

RABCK to "Lizabeth86".

Enjoy!

Received today from the bookrelay. A book with a long history already.

This book is heading back to its home state. Sending to a paperbackswap member in Fresno, CA.