The hills of Tuscany Book

I was really prepared to hate this - the soft-focus mid-menopause cover contributed to a sense of dread about it. But as I'm writing about tuscany, I've had to plow through all sorts of sentimental drivel about the perfect eden that is the contado of tuscany, inhabited by peasants who are the salt of the earth and live in utter harmony with the hedgehogs.

I kept thinking as I read this book of an amazing cookbook I own called La Rocca, which is a record by a WA italian woman of her life and recipes of her town, a tiny rocky place in the deep south of italy. Everything is much, much harder to grow and shepherd down there - those Tuscans have soil good enough to eat.

So Mate and his gorgeous painter wife RISK EVERYTHING by trying to live in italy - diving in after a 4 week vacation on a whim, without the language and a limited budget (this only possible some time ago). Please. If only most people had such hard choices to make.

Humbug aside - engagingly written without too much treacle. Particularly the grounded imagery of working farm landscapes and the cycle of toil that marks the year, and wonderful relish about food, without being too Batali about it. I did get sick of Candace always saying how hungry she was, and the post-prandial gloating.

Scratch the review. I want to kill this Hungarian and take his pretty farmlet.