Friday Favorites No. 538~a weekly series where I share interesting articles, books, fashion finds, recipes and more.
Good Friday Favorites morning friends! It’s officially summer and with it, the crazy weather. It has been raining here for days, in other parts of the country have had terrible storms and heat. How is there weather in your neck of the woods?
This week has had some ups and downs. My brother returned home after a year away, just in time to celebrate his birthday today. Then yesterday we received news that a friend had suffered a heart attack and passed away. I am heartbroken for his children and wife.
Life is fragile my friends, don’t let a day pass without letting the people in your life know just how much you love them.
There is more rain in the forecast so I am not to sure of the plans for the weekend. What about you? Do you have something fun planned?
Ok, get yourself a coffee, tea or cocoa and join me as I share my favorites books, recipes, articles and finds from this week.
FRIDAY FAVORITES NO. 538
FOOD~RECIPES TO TRY
Sliced egg sandwiches are basically a deconstructed egg salad and would be delicious for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Mediterranean chic pea sandwich is another delicious and easy menu option.
Aren’t these Pad Thai Summer Rolls beautiful?
It’s lavender season, why not make these lavender cupcakes with marshmallow buttercream frosting?
Links
This is one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever seen!
Looking for a dark and moody paint?
Love this breakfast charcuterie board.
How I Found My Bold Beauty Look at 51 Years Old
99 Date Night Ideas For A Sweet Summer
What Really Happens When You Don’t Turn Off Your Cell Phone on a Plane?
The 67 best places to eat this summer in the UK
My husband and I don’t live together. I think it’s the secret to our happiness
Your student loan payments will soon resume. Here are the key dates you need to know
Don’t Miss Ebony G. Patterson’s Summer Art Exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden
Book Recommendations~ Marlena De Blasi
On Monday I shared this book, and several of you messaged me to say that you had not heard of Marlena de Blasi. So today I thought I would share a few more of my favorite books of hers. I have read them all more than once and love them.
A Thousand Days in Venice
Fernando first sees Marlena across the Piazza San Marco and falls in love from afar. When he sees her again in a Venice café a year later, he knows it is fate. He knows little English; she, a divorced American chef traveling through Italy, speaks only food-based Italian. Marlena thought she was done with romantic love, incapable of intimacy. Yet within months of their first meeting, she has quit her job, sold her house in St. Louis, kissed her two grown sons good-bye, and moved to Venice to marry “the stranger,” as she calls Fernando.
This deliciously satisfying memoir is filled with the foods and flavors of Italy and peppered with culinary observations and recipes. But the main course here is an enchanting true story about a woman who falls in love with both a man and a city, and finally finds the home she didn’t even know she was missing.
That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story
Marlena de Blasi’ s marvelous storytelling, remind us that in order to live a rich life, one must embrace both life’s sorrow and its beauty. Here is an epic drama that takes readers from Sicily’s remote mountains to chaotic post-war Palermo, from the intricacies of forbidden love to the havoc wreaked by Sicily’s eternally bewildering culture.
Lady in the Palazzo
Marlena takes readers on a journey into the heart of Orvieto, an ancient city in the less-trodden region of Umbria. Rich with history and a vivid sense of place, her tale is by turns romantic and sensual, joyous and celebratory, as she and her husband search for a home in this city on a hill—finding one that turns out to be the former ballroom of a dilapidated sixteenth-century palazzo. Along the way, de Blasi befriends an array of colorful characters, including cooks and counts and shepherds and a lone violinist, cooking her way into the hearts of her Umbrian neighbors.
A Thousand Days in Tuscany
American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life. In search of the rhythms of country living, the couple moves to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. In this patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio collide, there is much to feed de Blasi’s two passions–food and love. We accompany the couple as they harvest grapes, gather chestnuts, forage for wild mushrooms, and climb trees in the cold of December to pick olives, one by one. Their routines are not that different from those of villagers centuries earlier.
They are befriended by the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain. His fascinating stories lead de Blasi more deeply inside the soul of Tuscany. Barlozzo shares his knowledge of Italian farming traditions, ancient health potions, and artisanal food makers, but he has secrets he doesn’t share, and one of them concerns the beautiful Floriana, whose illness teaches Marlena that happiness is truly a choice.
Amandine
NEED MORE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS?
If you have already read these books or missed something I have featured before on the blog check out My Bookshop on Amazon.
FINDS
There are lots of sales this weekend because the Fall items are slowly being released.
sweater//dress//tote//sandals//earrings
Love this blue and white stripe shirt!
And this dress!
These pjs look comfortable.
Have you seen the new Marlo Thomas collection at Williams Sonoma? These blue and white napkins are just one of the beautiful pieces.
UNTIL TOMORROW
I hope you enjoyed the recipes, links and books I discovered this week on Friday Favorites No. 538. If you have missed a Friday Favorites post you can find them all here.
Before you go, tell me who is your favorite author? And what is your favorite book written by them?
Don’t forget to visit the blog tomorrow for Weekend Meanderingswith Kim and Juliet.
This post contains affiliate links, if you make a purchase I will earn a small commission at no cost to you.
The blue and white napkins are beautiful! What I’ll be doing this weekend is staying in out of the horrid heat. I have not heard of that author either.
Brenda
Brenda, stay safe from the heat. I hope that you are feeling better! Marlena de Blasi is a fabulous writer, especially if you love Italy and food.
Supposedly we are in for thunderstorms.
The black rectangular box with ads is s is still taking up over half the space. I could not see or read the summary of the books or anything else. Please do something about this.