Under the Tuscan Sun 20th-Anniversary Edition

by MAYES, FRANCES

• ISBN13: 9780767900386
• ISBN10: 0767900383
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-09-02
• Publisher: Crown

Summary

Now in paperback, the #1San Francisco Chroniclebestseller that is an enchanting and lyrical look at the life, the traditions, and the cuisine of Tuscany, in the spirit of Peter Mayle'sA Year in Provence. Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. InUnder the Tuscan Sun,she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author Biography

Frances Mayes lives in Cortona, Italy and San Francisco, where she teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.  A widely published poet as well as a prolific food and travel writer, she has written for the <i>New York Times, House Beautiful,</i> and <i>Food and Wine.</i>

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 1
Bramare: (Archaic) To Yearn For	p. 5
A House and the Land it Takes Two Oxen Two Days to Plow	p. 24
Sister Water, Brother Fire	p. 41
The Wild Orchard	p. 63
Whir of the Sun	p. 75
(Make Haste Slowly)	p. 90
A Long Table Under the Trees	p. 107
Summer Kitchen Notes	p. 124
Cortona, Noble City	p. 138
Riva, Maremma: Into Wildest Tuscany	p. 159
Turning Italian	p. 180
Green Oil	p. 194
Floating World: A Winter Season	p. 205
Winter Kitchen Notes	p. 220
Rose Walk	p. 234
(Always Stone)	p. 242
Relics of Summer	p. 258
Solleone	p. 271
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

In 1990, our first summer here, I bought an oversized blank book with Florentine paper on the cover and blue leather binding. On the first page I wrote ITALY. The book looked as though it should have immortal poetry in it but I began with lists of wildflowers, lists of projects, new words, sketches of tile in Pompeii. I described rooms, trees, bird calls. I added planting advice, "Plant sunflowers when the moon crosses Libra," although I had no clue myself as to when that might be. I wrote about the people we met and the food we cooked. The book became a chronicle of our first four years here. Today it is stuffed with menus, postcards of paintings, a drawing of a floor plan of an abbey, Italian poems, and diagrams of the garden. Because it is thick, I still have room in it for a few more summers. Now the blue book has become Under the Tuscan Sun, a natural outgrowth of my first pleasures here. Restoring then improving the house, transforming an overgrown jungle into its proper function as a farm for olives and grapes, exploring the layers and layers of Tuscany and Umbria, cooking in a foreign kitchen and discovering the many links between food and the culture--these intense joys frame the deeper pleasure of learning to live another kind of life. To bury the grape tendril in such a way that it shoots out new growth I recognize easily as a metaphor for the way life must change from time to time if we are to go forward in our thinking. From the Trade Paperback edition.