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

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Sì, of course, I am off tomorrow.” It was effortless with him. “My friend is editing a film at a studio near the duomo. You like film and acting, no? Do you want to stop by the editing room and then have lunch?” When Lino passes, Amy and Idalia visit Sicily to see Lino’s mother and scatter his ashes. Despite some tension at first, Amy warms to Lino’s hometown, and vows to return as she feels her late husband everywhere she goes there. While I enjoyed this and appreciated learning of this couples story, I failed to fully connect. I did shed a few tears along the way, but I wasn’t as greatly impacted by the story as I had anticipated. I think part of this is due to the fact that I’m not one who enjoys cooking (although I LOVE eating!) and this book is largely centred around ingredients and cooking. The chef’s family shows their love through cooking and often has deep conversations through food where words are not necessary.

Lino declares his love for Amy just before she leaves Italy for LA, and the couple become inseparable.

He sensed I needed to know something about relationships that had, until that moment, been unclear to me. “Tembi, there are many people in this world that you can love,” he said between breaths.

By March, I was still renting a room in the penthouse apartment in Piazza del Carmine. One night I was waiting for Saro to get off work, and I sat up most of the night talking to a new American roommate, Cristina, from San Francisco who had filled me with stories like a tumbler of whiskey. By the time we adjourned, it was after midnight. My plan was to lie down just for a few minutes, rest, and wait for Saro to arrive in the piazza below sometime just after 1:00 a.m. It had been four months since he had bought me the bike and we had shared the ride across the Arno. We had a routine at this point that when he finished work at Acqua al 2, he left Florence’s center and rode across the river to Piazza del Carmine to wait outside my apartment. He would stand across the street from my building and wait for me to come to the front window. Upon seeing him, I would buzz him in. He couldn’t ring the bell because of one of my roommates, whom Cristina and I jokingly called “The Den Madame” but who was, in fact, a Canadian trust fund transplant whose name was on the lease on the rooms we sublet. She was famous for discontinuing the tenancy of any girl who took up with bothersome boyfriends. Ringing the bell after 10:00 p.m. qualified as bothersome. As we turned onto Viale Alessandro Volta, the boulevard that would take me to my host family’s home, I got scared. I was falling for him.I keep notes, I journal, and I use photographs and music to jump-start a writing session. I write in both spurts and longer periods of time, but rarely more than three hours of continuous writing at once. For me, small is big. Meaning short sessions often add up to a large output. And I write anywhere and everywhere. Seriously. I wish I could say I have a fixed place and set time, but my life doesn't look like that. I’ve written in parking lots. HA! However, occasionally I will go away for two-to-three days at a time, just me, and do a deep dive into the story. Those times are my favorite and keep me feeling sane as I work to finish a complete draft. One week into the new year, on a bright winter day, I bumped into Saro on the street again. When I saw his face, a light went on inside me. I had finally surrendered to the fact that I couldn’t come at love from a defensive position—what I wouldn’t do, what rules I would have to follow. None of that had worked for me. I suspected I had to be open, as spontaneous and brave and intuitive as the woman who had chosen to come to Italy in the first place. Something inside me said, You’re in the most romantic place on Earth, if not now, when? Go for love. Without a moment’s hesitation, I threw my arms around him, American style, and asked, “Do you want to go out?” His face was warm and open. I noticed the slight curl of his lips for the first time. He had been hiding in plain sight. I think she has slept with him.” Caroline had finally arrived, and Lindsey was getting her up to speed moments later while we settled into our corner table downstairs in the cantina. Unlike them, I wasn’t in Italy to shop and hang out with my sorority sisters. 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. I had a semester’s worth of modest spending money, and I actually wanted to study art history. There was more I wanted, too, from my three-month stay. It was a yearning I couldn’t put into words yet.

Va bene,” I said, quietly exhilarated that my destiny with greatness might just begin with a good meal. On the subject of Saro — and the casting of his dashing on-screen counterpart, Mastrandrea — the pair share a tender moment. When Attica viewed the Italian actor’s audition tape, she was stunned by the actor’s similarity to her late brother-in-law — so much so, that she called to give Tembi “an emotional, sisterly heads up” that she might find someone particularly striking in the batch of Lino hopefuls. “When I saw [Eugenio’s tape], he took my breath away,” Tembi admits. “Both in his performance and the ways in which there was a physical similarity. There were certain gestures he had [that were reminiscent of Saro].” How does Nonna and Tembi’s relationship evolve over the three summers depicted in the book? What are the major turning points that bring them closer?Saro was watching over us as Robert made vows to Zoela. Our family friend Coline Creuzot serenaded us and friends brought over flowers and left them on our porch. When all was said and done, we drove around the neighborhood making old-fashioned, joyous noise with string and tomato sauce cans dragging behind us. Zoela made our 'Just Married' sign. It was perfect!" From Scratch: Book to screen adaptation

Sei la Tembi, no? Vieni. Come.” Then she cupped my face in her hands and kissed me twice on the cheeks. Apparently I needed no introduction. In a flash she grabbed me by one hand and led me into the heart of the dining room. Lindsey bounced along behind me. From Scratch chronicles not only Tembi’s love story, but her journey of grief over the course of 3 summers spent in Sicily visiting her mother in law. Tembi finds solace through food, family, and community. But it was Aubrey who could see Saro’s love on view in plain sight. Later, after a walk through Florence, an afternoon of window browsing, and then dinner, she told my dad, “And don’t even think about objecting to their age difference. You and I are also twelve years apart. It’s plain as day how he feels, you do not have to worry about this.” She shot down any lingering doubt, assuaging my father’s concerns. Aubrey was Saro’s ambassador into my clan. What I didn’t know was that loving someone long term, in that “peace” that I so desperately longed for, would also mean loving parts of them that remained unseen. As much as Saro’s heart was an open book, there was a mystery in him. My familial love was given, steady, open, even when out of sight. When he spoke of his origins, his family (which was rarely), there was a trace of pain, something unsettled, an air of disappointment I couldn’t quite identify. It was a part of his life that hadn’t yet been fully revealed to me. It would be soon enough. The couple head to Sicily for their honeymoon, so Lino can introduce his family to his new wife and show Amy his beloved home, but his father tells him not to bother visiting.Ciao, mi chiamo Tembi. Sì, Tem-BEE,” I said in my best classroom Italian. I sounded stilted, as if I weren’t sure that the words were coming out right. My saving grace was an accent that wasn’t totally embarrassing and the fact that I could say my own name with relative ease. The food from Nonnas kitchen told a story, an epic and personal story of an island and a family. It told the story of poverty, grief, love, and joy. ... Her food spoke of malleability and resourcefulness in loss, in love, and in life. She had learned how to turn subsistence living into abundance.” Now in Italy, barely twenty years old, I was trying to decipher what made people come together and stay together forever. The idea that Saro had suggested, that a pairing could yield something great and lasting, was beautiful but untested. Still, when he said it, it felt real and possible. Even though I had extended my stay and I was set to return to America in a few months, Saro floated the idea that we could spend the summer together, that he’d come visit me at Wesleyan. One occasion after we had made love, he told me, “People eat all over the world. I can be a chef anywhere. You can only act in Los Angeles or New York. I will be at your side.” From Scratch started as a book, and speaking about her decision to write the memoir, author Tembi said: "This story had been swelling in my heart for years. Some of it even before Saro passed. I understood that there were aspects of our love story that were rare and beautiful.