It Takes A Villa by Kilby Blades

It Takes A Villa by Kilby Blades

Published by Entangled ISBN 9781649372086

Mass market paperback, $8.99, 352 pages

So many of us have yet to return to traveling, and if you want to travel to Italy without leaving your chair, Kilby Blades It Takes A Villa will have you feel like you are on the Amalfi Coast.

Natalie and her grandmother had planned to buy an abandoned villa in Amalfi. After her grandmother passes away, Natalie went through with their plans alone. Italy runs a program to encourage foreigners to buy homes for $1, with the stipulation that the buildings must be renovated within a six month time period or the buildings revert back to the towns.

Italy has a reputation for having a slow bureaucracy, which makes this program problematic. But Natalie is determined to renovate the abandoned villa on her own. It's go big or go home. She meets other Americans in the program, and as a group they support each other, sharing ideas, supplies, and work loads.

Natalie also meets Pietro, an architect and the son of the town's mayor, who is helping people (especially Natalie) renovate their buildings and manuever through the maze of regulations. Pietro wants this program and his town to succeed. He's also handsome, single and very attracted to Natalie.

Along with the traditional romance tropes, we get the added benefit of the lovely setting of the beautiful Amalfi Coast and the lessons of life lived in a different country and culture. That is what set this interesting novel apart from most books in the romance genre.

Fans of all the HGTV renovation shows will get an extra level of enjoyment from It Takes A Villa. And if you like Italian food, your mouth will water at the descriptions of the delicious food. This one would make a terrific Hallmark movie. 

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Kilby Blades tour.

Friday 5ive- The Five Best Food Items I Had in Italy

The Friday 5ive is a weekly post about five things that caught my attention. This week's post is about the five best foods I had on our trip to Italy.


1) On our first night in our first stop of Naples, we had dinner at the Sea Front Pasta Bar. We sat at a u-shaped bar surrounding the chefs making our meal. We had a three course pasta tasting menu, complete with wine pairings. Our first wine was a bright prosecco that made us very happy. The first pasta they made for us was my favorite of the three, a linguine with a very light lemon/olive oil sauce. It was perfection.

2) On day two in Naples, our guide Vincenzo took us to what he promised was the best gelato we'll have in Italy and I'll be darned, he was right.  If you go to Naples, you must stop in at Il Gelato Mennella. It's a tiny shop, but they have lots of interesting flavors, and I can highly recommend the pistachio. It was fabulous.

3) While researching restaurants at our second stop in Sorrento, La Locanda del Gusto had great reviews on TripAdvisor. A small restaurant, with just two dozen seats, the owner and only chef, Chef Carmen, ran a well-respected cooking school for years in Sorrento before opening up her own restaurant last year. We were all very happy with our entrees, including a Misto Salad, Lasagna, and my favorite, homemade gnocci that was light as a pillow in a silky tomato sauce. We went back for a second evening it was so good. Their house wine was fantastic too.

Gnocci

4) We moved on to the small town of Montalcino in Tuscany. Our traveling companions had been to the town many times, and took us to an authentic little old restaurant, Osteria di Porta al Cassero. It was filled with townspeople as opposed to tourists, and we were made to feel very much at home. We started with a lovely Brunello wine, and I ordered the Cinghiale, a specialty of the house. It's a wild boar stew over polenta. I'd never had wild boar and it wasn't gamey at all, rather it melted in your mouth. I made a good choice!

Cinghiale over polenta

5) Last year when we went to Florence, we ate at a terrific restaurant, Antico Ristora di Cambi. No one there really spoke English, and our poor waitress acted out the entire menu that was in Italian. They must have gotten a lot of English-speakers from their great TripAdvisor reviews because this year when we returned, we had the same darling waitress, but she spoke more English and the menu was in Italian and English. We sat near the prep area and watched the owner prepare the charcuterie platters, including cutting the proscuitto right off the leg. We ordered the specialty, Bistecca di Florentina. When my husband tried to order it medium, our waitress shook her head and said "No". They just sear the beef on each side briefly, and then it's brought to your table. They gave us a smaller piece and it was the best beef we have ever had. They serve it on a platter with a side of salt, just the way I like it.

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Friday 5ive- The best views from Italy

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, where I talk about five things that caught my attention. This week it's the five photos from our trip to Italy that were just stunning.

1) I loved the town of Sorrento, right on the Bay of Naples. This photo is one of my favorites, taken from the main street in town, looking out to the bay.

2) We took a private boat around the island of Capri, and Captain Franco took us to the Green Grotto, which was just so pristine and beautiful. My advice if you go is to skip the touristy and very busy Blue Grotto and visit the Green Grotto.

3) The view of Capri from the boat was pretty cool, seeing those buildings stacked up the mountain.

4) When we were walking in Siena, we came up a hill and this view of the Cathedral literally took my breath away. The interior was just as amazing. 

5) We walked up the 463 steps of the Duomo in Florence and the it was worth the effort to get a view of the city that was spectacular.

I'll have more Italy photos next week. Ciao!

Friday 5ive- Craftspeople in Italy

The Friday 5ive is back! Every Friday I post about five things that caught my attention. For the next few weeks I will post five things that I saw on our trip to Italy, which we took recently.

This week's Friday 5ive focuses on five craftspeople who impressed me with their artistic creativity.

1) On our trip to Sorrento, we took a tour of Il Turuziello, an agritourismo where Benedetto de Gregorio, AKA "The Cheese Man", shows the tour group how they make different cheeses, including mozzarella and ricotta, made before our very eyes. The entire group raved about the creamy ricotta in particular. Klaudia assisted The Cheese Man, and following the demonstration we toured the farm where we were all charmed by the baby calves. The newest addition was born 28 hours prior, and Klaudia named him after my husband Scott.

Scott, Klaudia and little Scott 

The Cheese Man making mozzarella

2) We had a fabulous dinner in a tiny little restaurant in Sorrento, la Locanda del Gusto. There are maybe two dozen seats in this compact restaurant, where Chef Carmen cooks every meal in her open kitchen located next to the little bar. Chef Carmen has run a cooking school for years, and last year opened this delightful restaurant. Our foursome had the lasagna, misto salad, and the best gnocci I have ever had. Chef Carmen came to our table after dinner so we could properly thank her.

The wall is covered with praise for Chef Carmen from diners

Lasagna

Misto salad

The gnocci

Chef Carmen came to our table

3) We headed to the town of Montalcino in Tuscany for a wine tasting at a lovely small winery, nostraVita (our life), that combines wine with art. Annibale Parisi and his wife Elena live on a beautiful vineyard overlooking a valley. They invite artists to stay at nostraVita, and in exchange for free rent, the artists leave their creations, which are located all along the property. Annibale is a real Renaissance man, an artist who paints each wine label himself. He is also hand copying a 15th century book about the region that he found in a bookshop. His home took our breath away.

Annibale painting a wine label

The finished bottle of Brunello

The book that Annibale is hand copying

4) The island of Capri is magical, and we were able to take a three hour cruise around the island with Captain Franco. He showed us sights that most tourists don't see, and each was more beautiful than the last. Captain Franco was a true artist, maneuvering his small boat into caves (grottoes) that had us shaking our heads in wonder. He also knows his way around camera phones, grabbing our cameras and taking the best photos of the day.

Captain Franco

A fabulous view from our boat

Capt. Franco and his boat

5) In Capri, I made a stop at Da Costanzo, where Antonio de Ruocco continues his father's tradition of handcrafting the most gorgeous sandals you'll ever find, right there on the spot. His father, Costanzo Ruocco, made an appearance in Adriana Trigiani's wonderful novel, Very Valentine, when shoemaker Valentine Roncalli goes to visit his shop while on the island of Capri. Antonio made me a fabulous pair of sandals, and we talked about his late father while standing next to a display of Trigiani's books.

Putting them together

Antonio and me and Adriana Trigiani's books on the shelf behind us

Antonio fitting my sandals

My new sandals!

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

The Friday 5ive- August 9, 2019 Edition

The Friday 5ive is a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week.
This was a quiet week, I didn't do too much outside the apartment and work at the Book Cellar.

1) We have been watching the Showtime series, The Loudest Voice, about Roger Ailes and the ascension of Fox News. It's based on a series of articles in New York magazine by Gabe Sherman and it is very well done. Russell Crowe is unrecognizable and remarkable as the bullying, bombastic, creepy and paranoid Roger Ailes. He will surely be nominated for an Emmy for this. Siena Miller is also fantastic as his loyal wife Beth, and she is also unrecognizable under the makeup. Naomi Watts portrays Gretchen Carlson, who ultimately took down Ailes when she made audio recordings of his constant harassment (sexual and otherwise).  If you want to know how we got to where we are in American politics, you'll find some answers here. 

2) The new Levain Bakery that opened up recently on the Upper East Side has a terrific mural on a wall in their store that caught my eye. It's got lots of the cool things in our neighborhood, but it is missing the Book Cellar. I'm sure it's just an oversight.

3) Have you heard of Yacht Rock? Apparently it's a new name for late 1970s/early 1980s West Coast soft rock (it used be called AOR- Adult Oriented Rock). I've been taking Jenn Sherman's Yacht Rock rides on Peleton bike and loving it. The Doobie Brothers, Christopher Cross, Loggins and Messina, and Michael McDonald, all the music I listened to while tanning in the backyard in high school. My only problem with the Yacht Rock Ride is that I keep spilling my chardonnay while riding. This is one of Jenn Sherman's Yacht Rock playlists- does it make you nostalgic?

4) This week I worked on our Italy trip some more- here are some of the books I pulled out to prepare. I always like to read fiction set in the places I'm going to visit, as well as travel guides.

5) I finished two books this week- Laurie Gelman's You've Been Volunteered and Cara Wall's debut novel, The Dearly Beloved, which I picked up at the Book Expo.

Gelman's book is a sequel to the hilarious Class Mom, about Jen, an older mom who has two grown daughters born during her wilder rock groupie days, and now has a young son in first grade with her loving husband. She is called upon to be the class mom for her son and her funny and sometimes wildly inappropriate emails to the parents in the class had me in stitches. In the sequel You've Been Volunteered, Jen is back as her son's grade three class mom, and that means the inappropriate emails are back! This time Jen is also asked to coordinate the school safety patrol, which leads to misunderstandings and a little mayhem. I only wish there were more of the class mom emails in this second book, but there are still plenty of laughs in this one too. You can read an excerpt here.

The Dearly Beloved is an emotional, moving book about two couples. Set in 1960's New York City, James is a pastor who wants to address wider social justice issues through his ministry, and his wife Nan is a pastor's daughter who has a very strong faith and wants to be a traditional pastor's wife. She also wants children, but she is finding that more difficult to achieve. Charles is James' co-pastor who wants to be a traditional pastor, helping his flock to understand the word of God, as well as with their personal problems. Charles' wife Lily was orphaned as a young girl and doesn't share Charles' faith in God. She wants to be an academic, and finds herself drawn into the problems of the world at large. This is a beautiful book, about faith, love, family and commitment to oneself and to one's spouse. This book will make you think and break you heart. It's one of the best books of the year. 

A true story of humanity during World War II

Don't let the title fool you; It Happened in Italy is not a chick-lit book. The subtitle, Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust, gives the reader a better idea of the substance of this non-fiction book.

Told in simple style by author Elizabeth Bettina, it recounts her discovery of how Jewish people fled to Italy from Germany to escape the Nazi regime, and were hidden by many courageous Italians, one of whom, Giovanni Palatucci, was sent to a German camp and killed for his participation.

Bettina fits the description, coined by Malcolm Gladwell, of a "connector"; a person who connects other people together. In this case, she connects Jewish survivors with the Italian people who saved them and their families, and with the Vatican. Her persistence that this unknown story must be told forms the basis for this intriguing book.

She uses many photos and documents kept by survivors and the Italians and sprinkles them in the text where relevant. I liked this format as it allows the reader to see immediately what she is referring to, rather than placed in the middle of the book where they are often found.

The stories of the survivors and their benefactors are interesting, a tale of true humanity during an inhumane period of history. The contrast between how the Jews in Italy were treated, with dignity and respect, and those Jews who were sent to death camps in Germany, is startling. This is an important story; thank goodness Elizabeth Bettina told it.

Rating 3.5 of 5 stars