A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi

Like the pleasurable tastes and textures of a fine meal, A Thousand Days in Tuscany is as satisfying as it is enticing. Barlozzo shares his knowledge of Italian farming traditions and ancient health potions, but he has secrets he doesn’t share, and one of them concerns the beautiful Floriana, whose illness teaches Marlena that happiness is truly a choice. In a cauldron set over a wood fire, they braise beans in red wine, and a stew of wild boar simmers overnight in the ashes of their hearth.

Together they visit sacred festivals and taste just-pressed olive oil, drizzled over roasted country bread. When Fernando spots her in a Venice cafe and knows immediately that she is The One, Marlena de Blasi is caught off guard. They befriend the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain whose stories lead de Blasi deeper into the soul of Tuscany. Books by Marlena de Blasi (Author of A Thousand Days in Tuscany) Books by Marlena de Blasi Marlena de Blasi Average rating 3. In A Thousand Days in Tuscany, de Blasi brings us along as she and Fernando harvest grapes, gather chestnuts, forage for wild mushrooms, and climb trees in the cold of December to pick olives, one by one. In this patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio collide, there is much to feed de Blasi’s two passions-food and love. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. Searching for the rhythms of country living, American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, move to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany.

It’s Barlozzo who guides them across the minefields of village history and into the warm and fiercely beating heart of love itself.Ī Thousand Days in Tuscany is set in one of the most beautiful places on earth–and tucked into its fragrant corners are luscious recipes (including one for the only true bruschetta) directly from the author’s private collection.American chef and author of A Thousand Days in Venice moves to rural Tuscany, where she and her husband discover village secrets of food, life, and love. Love especially for old Barlozzo, the village mago, who escorts the newcomers to Tuscany’s seasonal festivals gives them roasted country bread drizzled with just-pressed olive oil invites them to gather chestnuts, harvest grapes, hunt truffles and teaches them to caress the simple pleasures of each precious day. Love for the timeless countryside and the ancient village of San Casciano dei Bagni, for the local vintage and the magnificent cooking, for the Tuscan sky and the friendly church bells. Now they were taking another audacious leap, unstitching their ties with exquisite Venice to live in a roughly renovated stable in Tuscany.

They had met and married on perilously short acquaintance, she an American chef and food writer, he a Venetian banker. A Thousand Days in Tuscany American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life.

A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi