Welcome to Litsy!

Finished in November for my virtual foodie book club, this is not a book to go to for food inspiration but rather for humor & farce. Slightly uneven but fun romp with a prissy Englishman & earthy Eastern block woman, neighbors in Italy, drinking plenty of the titular liqueur. The recipes Gerald makes are too full of cat & otter to be taken seriously so I made a simple pasta e fagioli & pesto bread for dipping as my bookish dish (recipe link ⬇️)

Thank you so much @BookNAround for the two fabulous books and all of the recipes in my #RecipeSwap package! I have been wanting to read The Home Front since I loved The Chilbury Ladies‘ Choir so much & the tagged book is an upcoming selection for my virtual foodie book club. 🤗 The recipes all sound amazing, especially your Nan‘s Whiskey Cake. Thank you for being a great swap partner & thank you @BennettBookworm for hosting such a fun swap!

Drinking a fernet and coke like an argentine teenager and reading a romance novel because attention span.

#coversinyrfavecolor #anditsaugust

Some may call this "comic genius" but I found the snark and cynicism to be too much. There were certainly some hilarious moments, but for my taste, that doesn't make up for a lack of plot. Perhaps I just don't "get it" since this book is followed by two more about the main character. But never fear, #Europaeditions, I can't quit you!

Cynicism and sarcasm abound in this book. The two main characters, Gerald and Marta, complain to the reader about each other, yet they continue to interact daily. Neighbors on a Tuscan hillside, they are newly transplanted foreigners, confiding in the reader their frustrations with each other through some pretty funny observations. Such as this one, where Gerald is begrudgingly bringing dessert to a dinner at Marta's house. #currentlyreading

So...fun fact. Guess what Fernet-Branca is not? It is not a person. It is, in fact, an "herbal elixir" or "bitter spirit."

All these months that this book has been waiting on my shelf, I thought it was a person. Perhaps about a chef named Fernet. And now I look at the cover and it's so obvious.

Of course, once I read about the drink, it sounds terrible. Has anyone had it? Or has anyone read the book?

#currentlyreading