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    From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home
    Unavailable
    From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home
    Unavailable
    From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home
    Audiobook10 hours

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

    Written by Tembi Locke

    Narrated by Tembi Locke

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Now a limited Netflix series starring Zoe Saldana!

    This Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller is “a captivating story of love lost and found” (Kirkus Reviews) set in the lush Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hours.

    It was love at first sight when actress Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro’s traditional Sicilian family did not approve of his marrying a black American woman. However, the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forged on. They built a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships, and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopted at birth. Eventually, they reconciled with Saro’s family just as he faced a formidable cancer that would consume all their dreams.

    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. Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro’s family, now she finds solace and nourishment—literally and spiritually—at her mother-in-law’s table. In the Sicilian countryside, she discovers the healing gifts of simple fresh food, the embrace of a close knit community, and timeless traditions and wisdom that light a path forward. All along the way she reflects on her and Saro’s romance—an incredible love story that leaps off the pages.

    In Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or a death—in Tembi Locke’s case, it is both. “Locke’s raw and heartfelt memoir will uplift readers suffering from the loss of their own loved ones” (Publishers Weekly), but her story is also about love, finding a home, and chasing flavor as an act of remembrance. From Scratch is for anyone who has dared to reach for big love, fought for what mattered most, and those who needed a powerful reminder that life is...delicious.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateApr 30, 2019
    ISBN9781508293415
    Author

    Tembi Locke

    Tembi Locke is an accomplished actor who has appeared in over sixty television shows and films, including The Magicians, NCIS: LA, Animal Kingdom, and Dumb and Dumber To. She is also a TEDx speaker. Her talk, What Forty Steps Taught Me About Love and Grief, traces her journey as a cancer caregiver. She is the creative voice behind The Kitchen Widow, an online grief support community that has received mentions in The New York Times and The Guardian. The author of From Scratch, she lives in Los Angeles with her young daughter, but can be found each summer on the island of Sicily.

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    Reviews for From Scratch

    4/5

    110 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Memoir of Black American girl meeting and marrying Sicilian chef who is estranged from his father. The couple adopts a daughter and he dies of cancer . Girl visits Sicily and finds comfort. Adapted for Netflix. Good show.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this memoir. She writes about love and loss so well. Of course now I am craving Italian food. I can see why Reece Witherspoon chose this book for her book of the month selection. Highly recommend this one.
    • 5/5
      An intimate look at weaving together life and death, old and young, family and stranger, one culture with another
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this more than I expected to, it was nicely paced and none of it was too heavy or dull. I would love to go to Sicily one day, and I really enjoyed her memories of their life together and how she's moving forward.
    • 5/5
      Loved it!!
    • 4/5
      Subtitle: A memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding HomeWhile in Florence Italy as an exchange student Tembi met the man of her dreams. Saro was Sicilian, a chef, and more than a decade older than Tembi. She was an African-American college student, with attorney parents from Houston Texas. It was love at first sight, and the deal was sealed with the gift of a bicycle (probably stolen). This was an impossible relationship, but they made it work. And then he got cancer.This is a wonderful memoir full of love and tenderness, grief and frustration, joy and a sense of belonging. Locke narrates the audiobook herself. I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job. Brava!
    • 5/5
      Just a beautiful memoir. Tembi pulls you into her grief while seducing you with descriptions of Sicilian food. You ache at her unexpected single-parenthood as she pours her remaining energy and love into her daughter Zoela. You feel her awkwardness and Americanness viscerally as she tries to mend bridges with her Sicilian in-laws. You fall in love with Saro, her chef, lover, inspiration and husband, while at the same time watching his decline as cancer steals his zeal for life. Hers is a meditation in grief, food, and the true meaning of love. I love the way the book flips back-and-forth between the history of their courtship and marriage and then his death and the time thar followed. It worked much better than a linear timeline. Tembi’s relationship with her mother-in-law, Nonna, was the most quietly powerful piece of the story. Each chapter felt as aich and flavorful as the Sicilian dishes described within its pages.“She was telling me that throughout life, we revisit the empty spaces. That was her understanding of grief. That we are always trying to reconcile memory with reality. The tooth was a metaphor for all the missing things we lose in life.""But what I loved most was that her kitchen showed me how one ingredient can be made into many different dishes. Her food spoke of malleability and resourcefulness in loss, in love, and in life."
    • 4/5
      In ‘From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home’, Tembi Locke, an African-American actress, writes about her romantic trip to Florence as a college foreign exchange student and where she meets and falls in love with Saro, an Italian chef. After a two-year long distance relationship, Tembi and Saro marry, and he immigrates to the United States where they adopt a baby girl. After ten years of marriage, Saro becomes stricken with a rare form of cancer, and Tembi attends to his needs as a caregiver for almost 10 years. Very well written, this book expresses the deep, resilient love that Tembi and Saro shared, as well as the tribulations of an inter-racial marriage (with Tembi being African American). As I read this story, I fell in love the simple country living in Sicily, their wonderful foods, and all the beauty that surrounds the people there. Unlike other memoirs, which might become boring at times, this story held my interest because it unfolded so beautifully, and I was mesmerized by the extraordinary experiences that enriched their lives.