I’m a big foodie. I love to eat, and I love to cook. I love going out to eat, too. Food plays a role in most of my writing, especially in my short story, Ino’s Love. It also plays a prominent role in Blue Hydrangeas and its companion Christmas story. My go-to meals are Italian, most likely because I was raised Italian. So when I heard about Stanley Tucci’s new book Taste: My Life Through Food, I was intrigued. He makes everything sound so delicious! Did you catch his 6-part series Searching for Italy on CNN? It’s a gastronomic adventure through some of Italy’s best known regions and the most delightful edibles you can imagine: the meat, the cheese, the pasta. The wine!

This new memoir is sure to please as it tells the story of Tucci’s growing up Italian and his culinary experience. Did you know he recently underwent cancer treatment that damaged his taste buds and made everything taste disgusting? What an ironic twist of fate. This book is a great escape from the winter doldrums, and may inspire you to prepare some tasty treats, like pasta e fagioli, lasagne, meatballs, and, my favorite, tiramisu. Buon appetito!

About the Book

Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen 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 savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them.​ 

Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burned dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last. 

Written with Stanley’s signature wry humor, Taste is for fans of Bill Buford, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Ruth Reichl – and anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal. 

About the Author

Italian-American actor Stanley Tucci was born in New York in 1960. He has directed five films and appeared over seventy films, including The Devil Wears Prada, Easy A, The Terminal and Road to Perdition, as well as more than a dozen plays, on and off Broadway. He starred in Julie & Julia, opposite Meryl Streep, and The Lovely Bones, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. He is the winner of two Golden Globes and two Emmys. Tucci’s foody TV show, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, recently aired on CBS and is Emmy nominated.