The Italian Wedding

 

The Italian Wedding by Nicky Pellegrino was part of the 3-novel volume that I needed to purchase in order to read The Food of Love Cookery School. I loved The Food of Love Cookery School (still trying to convince my husband we need to take a cooking class in Sicily - now that he watched a Hallmark movie about a cooking school in Venice, he's more intrigued by the idea of a cooking school). I simply liked The Italian Wedding. 

It was the perfect book to read on the plane on the first leg of my Italy trip. (And no, I'm not in Italy yet.) I was initially disappointed that so much of the novel took place in England, but gradually, there was more and more of the story set in Italy. At this point it's very obvious that I love reading books based in Italy, especially when they deal with food!

What was also cool is that in this novel, the main character, Pieta, is a wedding dress designer making her sister's wedding dress and helping her plan a dream wedding. The first leg of this trip I'm on is to attend my daughter's wedding. Lots of connections there!

Pieta's mother, Catherine, helps with the construction of the wedding dress. And as they sew and bead, Catherine tells Pieta about how she and Pieta's father met and fell in love. Until that point, Pieta had a very  hard time imagining her mother before she was her mother. 

This was a very enjoyable novel to read, had my mouth watering in parts, got me really excited to visit Italy (counting the days), and it would make a great Hallmark-type movie.

I look forward to reading The Villa Girls, the third novel in this volume.

The Food of Love Cookery School

I guess I lied the other day. Here is another book I purchased as a result of a Facebook ad, but not until I'd communicated with the author and read an excerpt.

The Food of Love Cookery School by Nicky Pellegrino takes place in Sicily, one of the destinations for my upcoming trip. And it's all about food. Well, not all about food. It's sort of a romance, sort of a story of women rediscovering a part of themselves that had been missing.

Luca Amore (what a name!) grew up in a small baroque town in Sicily (modeled after Modica), left to live and work in London for a little while, and returned to Sicily where he opened a small cooking school using his nonna's recipes. (Pellegrino based his cooking school on a cooking school she attended. Sounds like so much fun!) The four participants live in Luca's nonna's house and go on all sorts of excursions in addition to the one cooking class they have per day.

There's romance, food, self-discovery, friendship, and did I mention food? The descriptions are drool worthy! In fact, as I was reading, I realized that I really need a pair of pants with an elastic waist for my trip. What if I eat all this delicious sounding food and then can't fit into the pants I was planning on packing? I stopped reading with about an hour left to order myself a stretchy pair of pants. 

I could make connections to two of the characters - Valerie, the 65-year old New Yorker and Moll, the British divorcee. One of my favorite highlights was from Moll's story. On weekends I'm always off on little adventures. I love finding spice shops or Italian delis and just breathing in the air. I lust after new recipes and the flavors I might find in them. That was me prior to moving to Florida.

In the author's notes, Pellegrino wrote: Some places I mention are real - the Caffe Sicilia in Noto is famed for its extraordinary ice cream, the Dolceria Bonajuto in Modica (which became Vincenzo Mazzara's dolceria) for its chocolate. I already had Caffè Sicilia on my list of places to try to get to. Now I'll need to add Dolceria Bonajuto.

Because The Food of Love Cookery School didn't come as a stand alone kindle book, I had to buy it as part of a 3-novel edition. So I have 2 more of Nicky Pellegrino's novels to read once I reach a lull in my book club and library reading. They might be good to save for a long plane ride I've got in my future.