“Many good things start with ‘Wouldn’t it be nice?’ Then you do, and they are, and that’s when things get scary — in the most exhilarating way.”
That’s the thinking, writes Mimi Thorisson, that led her and her husband Oddur to uproot their family of 10 several years ago from the old stone farmhouse they’d lovingly restored in the French countryside and begin anew in Italy. That mindset was already in place a decade earlier, when the couple traded their Parisian flat for the bucolic life. She channeled her passion for food into farm-fresh meals she prepared in her stylishly renovated country kitchen, and documented on a blog, Manger, with help from her photographer husband. Two well-received cookbooks — “A Kitchen in France” and “French Country Cooking” — followed.
All the while, the couple made frequent trips across the Alps to explore Italy, becoming increasingly fascinated by the dishes and culture of each region. They talked of producing an Italian cookbook, but only in a way that felt authentic. Their solution: become locals.
“Old World Italian: Recipes and Secrets from Our Travels in Italy” (Potter, $40) begins in the Piedmont city of Turin (Torino), the Thorisson family’s new home base for the next two years. She takes us to a farmers market with “zucchini flowers that shine so brightly, and so many of them that they feel like an edible painting or rows of the calmest fireflies.” That lovely image, photographed by her husband, became the book’s cover.
Thorisson’s evocative essays transport me to places I long to visit. Uncomplicated recipes such as the ones I’ve made thus far — Pork Loin Stewed in Milk and Sage, Torta Alle Mandorle (Almond Cake), and Ragu Bolognese with Tagliatelle — allow me to tag along vicariously, and imagine a day I can make that happen.
How nice that will be indeed.
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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