Only in Naples: Lessons in Food and Famiglia from My
Italian Mother-In-Law. Katherine Wilson.
Random House Publishing Group. April 2016. 304 pp. ISBN#: 9780812998160.
Katherine
Wilson travels to Italy but has no idea what to expect. She’s financially comfortable, over-weight,
very sensitive, and hoping her jaunt overseas will give her a new vision for
the future. It’s the family tradition to spend a year abroad after college and
Katherine has no idea how privileged she is. Her knowledge of the language is
thin but she manages to communicate and get set up with the help of a very
special family. She will be doing post-graduate work at the American Consulate
thanks to family connections. What that entails she has no idea but she hopes
it will be interesting. Yes, she will get what she wants and it will change her
life forever.
Her
introduction to Naples, Italy comes through her introduction to the Avallone
family. They are loud, warm, boisterous
and absolutely obsessed with food.
Katherine confesses she’s had a binge eating problem but doesn’t realize
the Avallone family is the cure for her distorted view of eating. As a result, she begins hanging out with
Salvatore Avallone and eventually falls in love with him. But this story is
more about Salvatore’s mother, Raffaella, who cooks with passionate love and
doesn’t really understand how Americans can eat food out of cans and find their
best meals eaten in a restaurant rather than a home.
Raffaella
is a miracle in disguise! She dresses
and makes up her face with perfection and yet cooks like an older Italian
grandmother, spewing out questions and advice a mile a minute while cooking. So we read delightful, savory descriptions of
homemade pizza. Ragu, a casserole with pasta, béchamel and four kinds of
cheeses, seafood pasta (never with Parmesan cheese according to Mamma
Raffaella!) and many more dishes leaving the reader drooling and starving for a
portion of each dish!
Plenty
of advice makes absolute sense, especially to this reviewer who shares some of
the Italian heritage. Raffaella can’t
understand how one would want to eat alone, knowing the company is part of the
necessary atmosphere for a scrumptious meal.
The story is replete with funny advice and stories, like preparing one’s
children for a world that is not only good but also full of lying, cheating
people. One doesn’t want one’s children
to be “baccala” or “dumb as a piece of cod.”
Read
this memoir! It will fill the hours with
laughter, great food and so much precious love; you may even want to read it
more than once! What a delight! Highly
recommended!
