Book Review – The Food of Love by Anthony Capella

I still remember how I got this book. It happened many years back. I was at the bookshop during the weekend and I saw this book. It looked very interesting but I put it back. But after going back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So the next time I was at the bookshop I looked for it but unfortunately it was not there. I was very disappointed but I decided not to give up. I started doing a search of the whole bookshop and finally found the book in a different place. The bookshop folks had done some reorganization and the book had been moved to a different place. This time I picked it up like I had found a lost treasure. But after that the book has been lying on my shelf gathering dust. I finally got to read it now.

The story happens in Rome. Tomasso is a waiter at a famous restaurant. He falls in love with Laura, a visiting student. But Laura will go out only with a man who cooks. So Tomasso takes the help of his friend Bruno, who is a brilliant chef. But Bruno himself falls in love with Laura. What happens after that forms the rest of the story.

The story seems to be clearly inspired by the French classic ‘Cyrano de Bergerac‘. To remove any doubt, Bruno even talks about his big nose at one point in the story.

I loved some parts of the story. The parts about food were good. The book is a beautiful love letter to Italian food. I also loved some of the main characters in the story. Bruno is a beautiful character who loves food. Bruno’s boss, the head chef Alain Dufrais is very interesting too. Gennaro the barista is a cool guy too. Marie the waitress is a fascinating character too. But my favourite of the women characters was Benedetta who appears in the last third of the book. She is like Bruno, but better. Benedetta’s mom Gusto is also a beautiful character. I didn’t like the two main characters Tomasso and Laura much. Tomasso seemed mostly like a useless person, and I didn’t understand what Bruno saw in Laura, she was just another flaky tourist. Benedetta on the other hand – she was really one of the strongest characters in the story.

I liked some parts of the book, but overall it was underwhelming. I think I should have read the book as soon as I’d got it. I’d have liked it more. Unfortunately I’ve read it a long time later after the initial spark had died and so it was disappointing. The romance defied all logic. At one point I wanted to scream at Bruno – I wanted to tell him to nurture what he had at hand, to love the person who loved him and cared for him instead of chasing a fantasy. But unfortunately, Bruno wasn’t listening.

I also have a feeling that romantic novels written by women writers are much better. I loved Mary Stewart’s ‘Madam, Will You Talk?’ which I read last year. I also loved Katie Fforde’s ‘Love Letters’ and Sophie Kinsella’s ‘The Undomestic Goddess’. I can’t help thinking that if Joanne Harris or Sophie Kinsella had taken this plot and run with it, the book that came out would have been much better.

One of the things I loved about the book is the Italian swear words and the Italian proverbs. Many characters keep swearing at each other and it is always colourful and the author presents both the Italian version and the English translation for our enjoyment. I loved those parts.

I’m done with Anthony Capella, I think. But I’m hoping to read other romantic novels and novels centred on food.

Sharing one of my favourite passages from the book.

Laura : “I guess it’s hard work, following a recipe.”

Bruno : “Sometimes, yes, but there’s much more to being a chef than just assembling ingredients.”

Laura : “Really? Like what?”

Bruno : “It’s like the difference between a pianist and a composer. The pianist is creative, certainly, but he is only the mouthpiece of the person who dreamed the tunes into life. To be a cook, it’s enough to be a pianist – a performer of other people’s ideas. But to be a chef you have to be a composer as well. For example, the recipes you are going to eat tonight are all traditional dishes from old Rome – but if all we do is simply recreate the past, without trying to add to it, it stops being a living tradition and becomes history, something dead. Those dishes were refined over centuries, but only through people trying different things, different combinations, rejecting what didn’t work and passing on what did. So we owe it to the chefs of the past to continue doing as they did and experiment, even when we are dealing with the most hallowed traditions.”

Have you read ‘The Food of Love‘? What do you think about it? Which is your favourite novel which celebrates food?

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Book Review – The Hellion’s Waltz by Olivia Waite

I discovered Olivia Waite’s ‘The Hellion’s Waltz‘ recently and I started reading it on New Year’s Eve, as I was in the mood for reading some romance, and I finished reading it today.

Sophie and her family have newly moved to Carrisford. Sophie’s father builds and repairs and sells pianos. Sophie tunes pianos, teaches piano playing and is a pianist herself. Sophie’s mother was a famous singer once. It looks like a huge misfortune has fallen over their family and so the family had to relocate from glitzy London to small Carrisford to start over again. Then Sophie stumbles into an attractive, charismatic woman called Maddie Crewes. As Olivia Waite beautifully describes that scene –

“This woman was how she’d imagined every cruel heartbreaker in every old ballad she’d ever heard. If you were lucky, you pined away for love of her. If you weren’t lucky, you won her, lost her, and were damned. Here was Sophie, craving damnation.”

What happens after that, as Sophie and Maddie are pulled together into a Sapphic embrace forms the rest of the story.

‘The Hellion’s Waltz‘ is a beautiful Sapphic romance. As we read about how Sophie and Maddie get attracted towards each other, we also learn about the England of the early 1800s, the England of Jane Austen’s times, when women workers were discriminated against, underpaid for their work, and if they chose to fight this injustice, how they were put in prison, or worse sent as a convict to Australia. Sophie is a musician and Maddie is a weaver who works against injustice through her underground, informal network, and it is wonderful to read how their worlds collide and intertwine together. I loved both the romance part and the history part of the book. Sophie is a quiet, introverted person, and in the initial romantic encounter, she says and does things that are so out-of-character, that it is unbelievable, and it feels that the author might have forced that scene into the book at that point, but subsequent romantic encounters are natural and beautiful and pleasurable to read. There are beautiful descriptions of classical music and piano tuning in the book that are a pleasure to read. There is one particular page that I want to share, in which Sophie plays a waltz, because it is so beautiful, but it is better read in context as part of the story, because it is more pleasurable that way. The book is worth reading for that page alone.

There are two more books in this ‘Feminine Pursuits’ series by Olivia Waite, both Sapphic romances, and I hope to read them sometime.

I’m sharing one of my favourite conversations from the book below.

Mr. Frampton : “How is the waltz coming along?”

Sophie : “I’m still working on that second section. It’s improving, but I’m not sure it’s ready for you to hear more just yet.”

Mr. Frampton : “You are aiming for perfection. It’s understandable. What musician worthy of the gift doesn’t wish to be perfect? But it’s unattainable. Either you’re on the upward slope and still learning how to achieve your designs, or you’re past the peak and tumbling down into overanalysis — forms without feeling.”

Sophie : “So then how do you stay at the top of the hill?”

Sophie’s Mom : “You can’t. You have to pick yourself up and keep going, try again. A musician gets only so many chances to stand in that place and give everything she has.”

Mr. Frampton : “Only so many perfect moments. The trick is to recognize them when they’re upon you.”

Have you read ‘The Hellion’s Waltz‘? What do you think about it? Do you like Sapphic romances?

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