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ABOUT THE BOOK
The Food of Love is set in Rome. American Laura Patterson is there studying art history and, as she is a beautiful blonde, she is getting a lot of attention! She’s dazzled by the warmth and vibrancy of the Eternal City, but not so overwhelmed by the men she meets. She wants sensuality and romance; she gets wolf whistles and drunken groping. Most of all she wants to experience Italian food at its best – so she decides she will only go out with a man who can use his hands in wonderful and creative ways such as cooking!
What is truly wonderful about this book is the great detail Anthony allows his characters to go into about the food within the book. They discuss the finer points of recipes with butchers, with lovers, with almost anybody, and everybody (except Tommaso) has a very strong opinion on the subject. You come to think that eating fried calves’ brains might not only be a good idea, but something you might want to try at home!
The book is divided up into courses, “Antipasto”, “Primo”, “Secondo”, “Insalata”, “Dolci” and ends with “Ricette”, which are recipes for many of the dishes in the book, which are provided througha series of emails from Bruno to Laura, where he is teaching her how to cook.
Cyrano de Bergerac
The story is partly a modern-day retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, one of the greatest romantic tragic-comedies of all time. In this play Cyrano, brave, witty but cursed with a big nose, is in love with his cousin, the beautiful Roxanne, but does not dare tell her so because he fears the humiliation of being rejected. Instead, he agrees to help his friend Christian de Neuvillette woo her by writing her love letters in Christian’s name. Roxanne falls for him – or the man she thinks he is and when Christian dies Roxanne flees to a convent. And finds out too late that the man who truly loved her was Cyrano.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Food buff, author and self-described Italophile Anthony Capella lives in Oxfordshire with his wife, Sara, and their three children. The Food of Love, his first novel, is being made into a film by Warner Bros Pictures.
His favourite holiday hideaway is the Trastevere quarter in Rome. He says the key for him is the food. ‘Traditionally – and this dates back thousands of years – it’s what’s known as ‘fifth quarter’ because all the best cuts of meat from the abattoirs around the city went to the Pope, cardinals, the noblemen of the court and the wealthy. The fifth quarter is what was left for the poor – basically the offal such as the brain, trotters and tail. The butchers in the area opened up working men’s restaurants cooking this stuff and gradually everyone – even those who were eating the prime cuts – came to realise this was the best part of the animal. I love eating out in Trastevere. There are lots of little places that don’t even have a menu: they just serve up whatever happens to be cooking that day. The locals really respect anyone that understands offal.’
Anthony has nearly completed his second book, The Wedding Officer, which is also about food, also a romantic comedy, and also set in Italy. However, there are some big differences too – it is set in Naples in 1944, when Southern Italy was occupied by the Allies and food was very scarce. It is the story of a young British officer whose job is to discourage soldiers from marrying Italian girls. In an effort to humanise him, the Neapolitans arrange for him to employ a beautiful and talented Neapolitan signorina as a cook.
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RICHARD & JUDY'S SUMMER READ 2005
Find out more about all the other books in the Summer Read
>>here
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