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BITTER ALMONDS

Name: BITTER ALMONDS
Author: Mary Taylor Simeti
ISBN: 0-553-81465-6

RECOLLECTIONS AND RECIPES FROM A SICILIAN GIRLHOOD

by Mary Taylor Simeti & Maria Grammatico ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2003

Eloquent celebration of food and a woman who learned the hard way how to prepare it.

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An American writer living in Sicily sympathetically captures a Sicilian woman’s recollections of her childhood in an orphanage, complete with recipes.

After a few pages describing Sicily’s impoverished west coast, tracing the history of its pastries, and explaining how she met her subject, Simeti (Travels with a Medieval Queen, 2001, etc.) draws on taped interviews to let Maria Grammatico speak for herself, with an occasional interpolation. When Maria’s father died suddenly from a heart attack in 1952, her mother, pregnant with a sixth child, was unable to support the family on their small farm near Erice. So 11-year-old Maria and her younger sister were sent to a local orphanage, the San Carlo, run by nuns who earned money making and selling regional delicacies. With a mixture of pride and pain, Grammatico describes the orphans’ involvement in every step of production, from shelling kilos of almonds to making molds for the famous Martorana fruits, painted marzipan candy. She learned how to paint them and how to make pastries and preserves, skills that later helped her earn her way in the world, but she remains angry about the conditions she and the other children endured. They lived mainly on meatless pasta and worked long hours in the laundry, the kitchen, and the hospital. They had no playtime, no books to read, and were punished harshly. Girls with developing breasts had to bind them painfully tight because brassieres were thought sinful. Maria missed her family, but stayed on at the orphanage until, thinking she wanted to be a nun, she entered a cloistered order in Catania. A nervous collapse brought her home, and in her early 20s she began making and selling confections and pastries; she now owns two shops. The recipes are clear and easy to follow, but the most memorable portions here contain Grammatico’s vivid recollections of a vanished culture and way of life.

Eloquent celebration of food and a woman who learned the hard way how to prepare it.

Pub Date: July 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-553-81465-6

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Bantam UK/Trafalgar

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.