
- 480 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
When Isobel Dusi visited Italy with her Australian husband Lou, little did they imagine that life would change forever. But, utterly besotted with the fragrant warmth and good-natured conviviality of Southern Tuscany, they decided to sell up their lives in the big city and move thousands of miles to follow the dream of a life more in keeping with ancient rhythms and time-honoured traditions of the Mediterranean. After months of searching they settled upon Montalcino, an intriguing hilltop medieval village with a reputation for some of the finest wine in Italy. VANILLA BEANS AND BRODO is an account of Isobel's hard-won acceptance into this tempestuous, warm-hearted and proudly independent community, whose voluble passions for home grown wine and Tuscan cuisine, for football and ancient traditions and festivals, puts paid to the myth that life in rural Tuscany is tranquil. Isobel and Lou are gradually transformed into Isabella and Luigi in this charming account of Tuscan village life that really gets to the beating heart of an Italian community - its joys, pleasures, anxieties, but above all, its absorbing eccentricities.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- About the Author
- Dedication page
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Montalcino
- Preface Arrivederci Iron Lady . . . Ciao, Signora Isabella!
- AUTUMN
- Chapter 1 Under the Holm Oaks
- Chapter 2 Twenty Arrows in Half an Hour
- Chapter 3 Vanilla Beans and Brodo
- Chapter 4 Primo – the First-born
- Chapter 5 Fooled by the Moon and Tricked by the Wind
- WINTER
- Chapter 6 Pianello . . . Pianello . . . Pianello!
- Chapter 7 One Winter’s Night
- Chapter 8 A Little Bit of Silence while the Bishop Speaks!
- SPRING
- Chapter 9 Alternative Tea and Jonquils
- Chapter 10 Quarantesimo
- Chapter 11 In the End the Ball is Always Round!
- Chapter 12 A Woodcutter’s Legend and a Woodcutter’s Wife
- SUMMER
- Chapter 13 The Next Bus Back to Siena
- Chapter 14 A Prophet, A Sweeper and A Winemaker
- Chapter 15 White Canyons in the Sky
- Chapter 16 Sailing into Cyberspace . . . Digging up the Past
- AUTUMN
- Chapter 17 Twenty Arrows in Half an Hour
- Glossary About Montalcino
- Index