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

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They build a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopt at birth.

Saro’s family doesn’t approve of him marrying a Black American woman but this doesn’t stop the couple, including a wedding in Sicily with Tembi’s Texan family in attendance. Eventually, they reconcile with Saro’s family just as he faces a formidable cancer that will consume all their dreams.

It sounded equally distorted and hopelessly Anglo, but she seemed comforted that at least she was speaking a foreign language. So I pulled my coat tighter and tried desperately to remember where I had misplaced the gloves my grandmother in East Texas had sent.

On that first day of class, when the lights dimmed in the auditorium and the first slide came up, a Greek frieze from Corinth circa 300 BC, I found myself spellbound.Saro, in all his ease, openness, and attractiveness, was not the kind of guy I went for—stateside or in Italy.

From Scratch chronicles three summers Tembi spends in Sicily with her daughter, Zoela, as she begins to piece together a life without her husband in his tiny hometown hamlet of farmers.The author tries so hard to be poetic/lyrical in the writing style that it seems more like a high school paper to please an English teacher. I really wanted to like this, to connect with someone else who has felt grief, but it fell incredibly flat. From my place at center stage, I could see Saro moving like a wizard behind a scrim of sizzling heat, orchestrating the clamorous clanging of pots; setting the pace and unfurling magic onto plates from Acqua al 2’s narrow, searingly hot kitchen. Tembi said that Sicily was an essential part of her healing journey, offering her hope and sunshine.