Amarcord: Marcella Remembers

I've been a fan of Marcella's cookbooks (her Roast Chickens with Lemons is one of the best and easiest recipes I have ever cooked) and I enjoyed her autobiography. It was interesting to learn how she happened upon her illustrious cooking career. I enjoyed her funny anecdotes, especially the one about the call from her son's school in which she was told that they hoped she was making progress in learning how to cook. I found it refreshing that she also shared some of her failures and regrets. As a cook who will never have the tremendous success of writing a best-selling cookbook, it was nice to know that even best-selling cookbook authors can have failures too. I appreciated her candor about some of her professional relationships that did not work out. I did not find it to be "sour grapes." Relationships do not always work out. That's life, and apparently it happens to successful cooks and authors too.

I have not yet finished this book...I'm savoring each page...each vibrant word, and delectable description about life and food. What a joy to read this book. I feel like I'm sitting in Marcella's kitchen as she reminisces about her life. Snuggle up with this book and a plate of manicotti, and you are sure to be in heaven. Comfort food for the mind. I had never heard of Hazan before, but will certainly purchase her cookbooks after reading her autobiography.

Marcella Hazan has been credited with introducing Italian food to the English-speaking world, but until now she's received relatively little attention for her personal life. Her memoir begins in Egypt, where she spent her early childhood, follows her unexpected journey back to family roots in Italy at a young age, and follows her initial ambition to become doctor and professor of science before she marries, moves to America, and began taking cooking lessons to re-create the taste of her homeland. Any who are fans of Hazan's cookbooks, and who like autobiographies, will relish this story of how she evolved to become a world-class cook and teacher.