Taste: My Life through Food
by Stanley TucciSetting: United States
Published on October 5, 2021
Pages: 291
Format: Hardcover Source: Owned
From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen.
Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the recipes and into the stories behind them.
Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, New York, preparing for and filming the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia, falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.
Written with Stanley's signature wry humour and nostalgia, Taste is a heartwarming read that will be irresistible for anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal.
This is a book that it took me a long time to warm up to. That surprised me. I enjoy Stanley Tucci in movies. I like foodie memoirs. But this book had a lot of childhood stories and that tends to bore me in a memoir.
The recipes in this book are also very meat-centric. The author really, really loves meat. I can’t relate so the recipes weren’t very interesting to me either.
But then he started to write about filming a series on Italian food. I decided to look that up and give it a try. It is on CNN. The husband and I started to watch it. The food is still meat-centric but I got more involved in the story. The second half of the book went better for me.
I did try one recipe. The husband wanted to try his recipe for a simple garlic, olive oil, and spaghetti dish. It is basically grown up buttered noodles. I was at a garlic festival so I grabbed some fancy garlic. I quite enjoyed this simple dish and will make it again.
The story that sticks with me from this book involves his cancer treatment. He had friends help him with doctor’s visits and home care. His friends just happened to be Ryan Reynolds and Colin Firth. Deadpool and Mr. Darcy themselves. I feel sorry for the husband now. He just had my mom and I during his cancer treatment. Hardly seems adequate now.
We read this for CTB. Watch Big Night if you haven’t. I do want to watch his series but will have to go to another streaming service.
I’m sure your husband was happy with having you on his side!
I listened to this book on audio and loved it! And really enjoyed the CNN TV series, both the first and second series, although the second series was too short!
I’ve been really curious about this one because I mostly read glowing reviews of it, but I’m not super familiar with Tucci (of course I recognize him from various movies, but I’m not a dedicated fan and I always hesitate on celebrity memoirs when I don’t know them well!) I’m also not into a lot of meat-heavy foodie storytelling, so that’s a bummer that most of the recipes were that way. The garlic spaghetti does sound really promising, though!
I hope your husband is doing much better, and he was lucky to have you, who needs Deadpool 🙂
I’m sure your Mom and you were more than adequate and much better for your husband’s well being than anyone who is famous. Nobody loves like a wife and mother. I hope your husband is doing much better and pray for continued healing.
He’s doing fine. I don’t think he would have actually appreciated Ryan Reynolds and Colin Firth as much I would have anyway.