Taste by Stanley Tucci

A friend from many years ago was a caterer on movie sets. I thought she had an amazingly interesting and glamorous job – she said it was mostly just cooking in shitty and inadequate kitchens! Anyway, I thought of my friend when I read Stanley Tucci’s memoir, Taste, because there’s one chapter on what Tucci ate on movie sets (it was my favourite chapter).

Tucci subtitles the book ‘My Life Through Food’, and he weaves recipes through reminiscences about his childhood –

…in Italian families, nothing is discussed, ruminated on or joked about as much as food (except death, but I’ll save that subject for another book)… Continue reading

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

The word that comes to mind when I think To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara is ‘ambitious’. And I felt somewhat ambitious when I opened the first of its 708 pages (it was during the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge – what was I thinking?!). Anyway, I am a little unfair on big books – I expect a lot for my reading-time-investment – To Paradise delivered in parts.

Yanagihara has essentially created three books in one – re-imagining the past and describing an eerily possible future. The stories are lightly interlinked through names, families, a house in Manhattan; physical and mental illness; and the colonisation of Hawaii. Continue reading

Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

01. Started the week with a visit to Aurora Bathhouse in Sorrento – it was so good. Hard to say which bits I liked best but the salt scrub; cold plunge pool; mineral pool with tonnes of room to float; and the glacial mist room were all outstanding. Continue reading