Showing posts with label Anthony Capella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthony Capella. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Top Ten Tuesday: Places I visited which reminded me of books I have read

 

 



Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Bookish Goals for 2023, I really only have two of those (and I am already behind on one of those) so instead I am twisting the topic to have the opportunity to share some photos from my trp!

My theme for this week is places I have visited which reminded me of books I had read. Obviously, I need to work on the title to make it a bit snappier, but it is what it is right now.


For context, I am currently in Italy, having visited The Netherlands, France and Italy. We will be travelling home via Singapore so there will be more, but for now, these are just some of the places where I found myself thinking about books I had read while I was away





Bayeux - There is so much history in Normandy, whether it be medieval or WWII or somewhere in between. I found my self thinking about Elizabeth Chadwick's books as well as Sharon Kay Penman's books. However, for the purpose of today, I am choosing to match with The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower





Saint Chappelle - Amy Plum introduced me to this place and it has been on my bucket list ever since.




St Malo - When we were planning our route we were looking for somewhere to stay between Normandy and the Loire Valley and I chose this place purely and simply because of Anthony Doerr's wonderful book All the Light We Cannot See.





Chennonceau - I first blogged about wantiing to visit Chennonceaux back in 2011! This book tells the story of Catherine de Medici who left her mark on this chateau.





Louvre - I have read a number of books now which talk about the saving of art from The Louvre. One passage which came to mind was from The Riviera House by Natasha Lester where they talked about the processs of getting The Winged Victory of Thamocrace out of the Louvre. Interestingly, at Chambord in the Loire Valley there is a new permanent exhibition which talked about saving the art from The Louvre during WWII.





Musee D'Orsay - We loved visiting Musee D'Orsay - we definitely did not have enought time thher. Whilst Renoir's painting Luncheon of the Boating Party is not one of the ones we saw, I did find myself thinking of this book while I was there.





Musee D'Orsay - I really wanted to get a photo of the clocks at Musee D'Orsay. They are on a number of covers but this it the one that comes to mind.





Naples - The obvious choice for Naples would be Elena Ferrante but instead I am choosing The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella





Puglia - As I started this post I was staying in a trullo in Alberobello. I was inspired to want to visit Puglia thanks to this book. We did a walking tour of the town and the guide asked why we chose to stay here and I shared the title!




Rome - We arrived in Rome late on Monday so our main tourist day is tomorrow so no pictures yet!





Tuesday, November 01, 2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Weddings

 





Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Unlikable Characters You Can’t Help but Love (These are villains, criminals, jerks, etc. that make you fall in love with them anyway, perhaps because they evolve by the end or they’re secretly wonderful and have been all along.)


I am, however, going off topic again this week because 1 November is my wedding anniversary. It is 3 years since my lovely husband and I got married in Vanuatu so today I bring you wedding related books!





The Dressmakers of Yarrandarah Prison by Meredith Jaffe - Just looking at this cover brings back such good memories of reading this book about a group of prisoners who decide to make a wedding dress during their sewing class



Lost Without You by Rachael Johns - Whilst this title doesn't scream wedding, it is all about 4 women and one wedding dress!






Vision in White by Nora Roberts  - I could have chosen any of the books from this quartet. I still think these covers are gorgeous!



Boomerang Bride by Fiona Lowe - Such a fun read!






The Wedding Shroud by Elisabeth Storrs - It's not always about the white dress!



The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith - Book no. 12 in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.






Maggie's Run by Kelly Hunter - This was the first book set in the small Australian town of Wirralong, and the wedding business that prospered.



The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella - I think I might want to read this again before we go away as it is set in Naples






An Island Wedding by Jenny Colgan - This was the fifth and seemingly final book in the Mure series set on an island in far northern Scotland.



Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes - In this case it was Marg was getting married!!



Maybe next week I will be back on topic. We'll see!


Tuesday, August 02, 2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set In a Place I’d Love to Visit (real places or fictional)


 


Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Books Set In a Place I’d Love to Visit (real places or fictional). This is a topic that I feel like I done recently but it is actually a couple of years ago now! So this week I am going to share some books set in places that we plan to visit soon.





We are planning a weekend away in Adelaide for my brother's 40th birthday soon.

Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson (review) - This book is set in both Adelaide and Sheffield in the UK, which is a place I lived in for four years back in the late 1990s.





At some point this year I need to go to Perth to see the family over there


Taking a Chance by Deborah Burrows (review) - Deborah Burrows wrote a couple of books set in war time Perth!





We have a big trip planned for the end of the years where we will start in The Netherlands to see my brother in law and his family.

Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach - we won't be there for Tulip season but still

The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater - recently bought this.




From there we will go to Northern France -We don't know exactly where we are going to be staying so I am choosing the following two locations. What we do know is that there will definitely be some Normandy beaches experiences. After that we will head to Paris. Given that I only just did a French themed TTT post a couple of weeks ago,  I am going to only share one book for all of France.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - set in St Malo






From there the plan is to head to Southern Italy.


The Postcard from Italy by Angela Petch (Review)- I was inspired to want to visit Puglia after reading this book!


The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella - Set in Naples!




We will stop in Singapore on the way home



Tanamera by Noel Barber - I read this in my late teens or early twenties. I also read numerous other books by this author. Not sure they would stand the test of time!





The next year we are planning to spend some time in New Zealand



Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins - Such a fun read!





And then looking even further forward we are thinking about heading to Hawaii which will include a visit to Pearl Harbour for sure.



The Lost Pearl by Emily Madden - This book is set both in Hawaii and Sydney.



I love travelling but I am always grateful to travel via the pages of a book too!


Sunday, December 04, 2011

Virtual Advent Tour: Christmas past

One of the fascinating things about reading historical fiction is seeing how differently things that we take for granted now were treated in the past. I found this passage interesting as it is set at the time of the Restoration to the English throne of Charles II, not long after the Commonwealth ended. During the Commonwealth, the celebrating of holy and feast days associated with the Catholic church was frowned upon, including Christmas.

It is not too late to join in the tour this year. You can still sign up at the sign up post.
This passage comes from page 243 of Anthony Capella's The Empress of Ice Cream.


I told Elias we would be spending the winter out at Hampton and his face fell.

"What is it, boy?"

He said hesitantly, "It is just that we will  miss Christmas."

"Elias!" his mother said, overhearing. "Christmas! What is this I hear?"

He hung his head in shame. "Some of the other children are saying that it will be a holiday."

Without asking my permission, she whisked him off into a corner. I thought she must be scolding him over his lack of enthusiasm for his work, until I realised that her objection was a different one. She was trying to speak quietly, but anger made her voice carry.

"... bad enought that you work for a papist. But I will not be celebrating papist festivals as well. Now be off with you, and no more talk of Christmas."

***

"You don't celebrate Christmas, I take it?" I said neutrally.

"We do not."

"May I ask the reason?'

"Under the Protector, it was seen that there was no need for it."

"Whereas the Protector's own birthday, no doubt, was a public holiday?"

She glared at me. "Show me where in the Gospels it says that December the twenty-fifth is Christ's birthday, and we will celebrate it. Until then the Sabbath is enough Lord's Day for us."

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Weekend Cooking: The Empress of Ice Cream by Anthony Capella

FRANCE 1670. Carlo Demirco's mastery of the extraordinary new art of creating ice creams has brought him wealth, women, and a position at the court of Louis XIV.

Then Carlo is sent to London, along with Louise de Keroualle, an impoverished lady-in-waiting. The most powerful ministers of two countries have decided that Louise is to be Charles II's new mistress, and will stop at nothing to make sure she submits.

But Carlo too is fascinated by the enigmatic Frenchwoman.With the king's every pleasure the subject of plots and betrayals, and Carlo's only weapons his exquisite ice creams, soon he must decide ...Where do his loyalties lie?

If you were to ask me who my favourite English king to read about is, I would probably choose Henry II, but not far behind you would find Charles II, and yet on the surface of things there is not that much to admire. He was a king who lived for pleasure, had multiple mistresses and numerous illegitimate children, but after the years of austerity that was enforced during the years of the Commonwealth, his court must have been something to behold.I guess though, when it comes down to it, I have been charmed by the way I have read Charles II through the fiction I have read over the years. (I have previously posted about this fascination here)

The title and cover of this book alone would have caught my attention, but to read further in the blurb and find out that it is set in the Restoration court of Charles II made it a must read for me! Stir ice cream into the mix and it is even better!

The events that are portrayed in the book come to us from two different perspectives. The first is of a young man who we meet in Italy where he is the young apprentice of an ice maker. He is being taught the art of the ice by his owner - the four flavours, the skills, the tips to creating the perfect textures for ices, cordials, for ice carving and more. But Carlo has lofty ambitions. He wants to do more than just stick to the rules that he is being taught. He wants to experiment with new flavours, new techniques, and most of all, he wants to be his own man, to call no man master.

Offered a chance to escape from his life in Italy, Carlo finds himself in the court of Louis XIV, and it is there that he meets Louise de Keroualle, a lady in waiting to Minette, the sister of Charles II, and sister in law to Louis XIV. Carlo is very quickly besotted, but Louise is out of his reach. She may be impoverished but she is the daughter of one of the most noble families of Brittany, and whilst Carlo has made his own way to Court, he is still of ignoble birth.

It is Louise who provides the other perspective in the narrative. Following the death of Minette, Louise is sent to the court of Charles II. It seems everyone but here is aware of what her objective is to be - to become mistress to Charles II and to influence his decisions and policy to the advantage of her native France. Carlo is also sent to France as part of the 'gift' from Louis with a brief to create an ice the likes of which has never before been seen or tasted in England.

One of the hallmarks of the decadence of the Court is that there was a total fascination with all things French - fashion, art, food... ices. Carlo spends all his time trying to create the dessert that we now know as ice cream, using some of the most famous intellectuals of the time to help develop the methodology. Far from being an accessible treat as it is for us today, the desserts created by Carlo were only for the rich and powerful, and sometimes they were created for the king alone.

Many of the desserts that are described in the book sound incredible - for example, at one of the feasts Carlo creates a pineapple ice that not only is made from the then exotic and difficult to obtain fruit, but is also carved to look exactly like a pineapple - although in the quest for more and more unique tastes and combinations there were also some that were not quite so enticing to my more modern palate!

Providing contrast to the glittering courts, we also get introduced to Hannah and Elias who live in the same establishment as Carlo. These are the working class, the people who suffer under the heavy burden of poverty and who see the merriment of the court and find it hard to believe that there can be such wastage, particularly as the king and parliament are increasingly at odds about issues like funding the wars against the Dutch. Stir in anti-French sentiments and anti Catholic sentiments that were rife at the time and they provide a necessary contrast to the constant over the top details of life at Court.

When you read an Anthony Capella book it becomes obvious pretty quickly that this is an author who loves food, and I would go so far as to say that if you want descriptions of sensory experiences - be they taste, sight or the other senses - then Capella should be a go to author. This is particularly true of The Wedding Officer and the Food of Love with their focus on Italian food, and of this book. It is only when the narrative moves away from the focus on the sensuous that it loses its way. Unlike some of the other portrayals I have seen of the relationship between Louise and Charles this one is definitely more clinical, colder and more  about business, and this is also a bit of a difference between this book and others by this author that do tend to have romantic themes.

That is not to say that there is no mention of love - for all that this isn't completely a romantic story, there is lots of discussion of love and sex:

I have heard love compared with a fire. But that is all wrong. If you touch a flame you draw back. The pain is quick and sudden and then it is gone.

Love is like ice. It creeps up on your, entering your body by stealth, crumbling your defences, finding the innermost recesses of your flesh. It is not like heat or pain or burning so much as an inner numbness, as if your heart itself were hardening, turning you to stone. Love grips you, squeezing you with a force that can crack rocks or split the hulls of boats. Love can life paving slabs, crumble marble, wither foliage from trees.
If you are at all interested, then Capella has shared some recipes of some of his favourite ice creams which prompts me to ask...


What are your favourite ice cream flavours?

I find it difficult to to go past Boysenberry. I first tasted this flavour when I went to Christchurch in New Zealand many years ago, and will always therefore associate it with New Zealand, but I am grateful that the flavour is also accessible here!

 Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Weekend Cooking: The Various Flavors of Coffee by Anthony Capella

Do you ever take the time to look back over the posts that you have done for Weekend Cooking? I did this week, and it was a pleasant way to spend a few minutes. I looked back over some food related memories, some new recipes that I had tried and liked, some old favourites, and only one dismal failure!

I was also reminded that I had never actually posted my review of The Various Flavours of Coffee by Anthony Capella, despite the fact that we had played the guess the title game a while ago now, so that is what my Weekend Coffee post is this week:

It was a cup of coffee that changed Robert Wallis's life - and a very bad cup of coffee at that. The impoverished poet is sitting in a London coffeehouse contemplating an uncertain future when he meets Samuel Pinker. The coffee merchant offers Wallis the very last thing a struggling young artiste in fin de siecle England could possibly want: a job.

But the job Wallis accepts - employing his palate and talent for words to compose a "vocabulary of coffee" based on its many subtle and elusive flavors - is only the beginning of an extraordinary adventure in which Wallis will experience the dizzying heights of desire and the excruciating pain of loss. As Wallis finds himself falling in love with his coworker, Pinker's spirited daughter Emily, both will discover that you cannot affect one set of senses without awakening all the others.

Their love is tested when Wallis is dispatched on a journey to North Africa in search of the legendary Arab mocca. As he travels to coffee's fabled birthplace - and learns the fiercely guarded secrets of the trade - Wallis meets Fikre, the defiant, seductive slave of a powerful coffee merchant, who serves him in the traditional Abyssinian coffee ceremony. And when Fikre dares to slip Walllis a single coffee bean, the mysteries of coffee and forbidden passion intermingle...and combine to change history and fate.
This is the third book that I have read from Anthony Capella, but it was the first one that I have been disappointed in, and it is going to be hard to quantify, because the topics covered are all quite interesting but when combined into one story it didn't quite work. One of the main reasons for this is because the main character, Robert Wallis, is quite unlikeable and to my mind Capella didn't manage to rehabilitate him to this reader.

The man we first meet in a coffee shop in London, drinking a very average cup of coffee, is a younger son whose father has told him that he needs to find a way to support himself after having been sent down from university. To be honest, I can't think of many positive elements of his character. He is a spendthrift, he frequents prostitutes regularly, thinks nothing of dabbling in drugs, and certainly doesn't want to have to work for a living.

What he does do well is use words, and it is this trait along with the fact that Robert seems to have a good palate for different flavours which attracts the attention of Mr Pinker, a wealthy coffee merchant with a big idea! His idea is to  create a kind of reference library of tastes so that when he is ordering coffee beans from all round the world they can refer to the vocabulary and he will know exactly what flavours he can expect to receive in his shipment.

To develop this reference guide, Wallis begins to work closely with Mr Pinker's daughter Emily and they soon develop a relationship, with Robert thinking that he may well soon find himself more than just an employee to Mr Pinker, yet he doesn't really have much to recommend him other than he is quite dapper, generally paid for through borrowing from loan sharks. Take this example:

I considered carefully what to wear for dinner at Pinker's. On the one hand it was almost one's duty, as an aesthete, to make a striking show at table. One the other, I wanted Pinker to think of me as a possible future son-in-law. I should wear something impressive, I decided: something that declared that I was, if not quite his equal, then somebody of distinction within my own sphere. After some consideration I found the very thing: an ornate jacket of green Jacquard silk, inlaid with gems, which seemed to shimmer with the opulent iridescence of a mallard's neck. It was on display in Liberty, along with a magnificent turban in blue, at the fastening of which was a sumptuous brooch of red garnet. The only problem was that the ensemble cost six pounds, a sum I could no longer afford.


There were moments during this book which were very amusing. For example,  when Wallis turns up for dinner in the above outfit, one of the other characters (a dour Scotman who plays a pivotal role in the lives of both Robert and Emily) says

"they'd warned me that ye were a pote, Wallish, but they'd no' warned me that ye might forget your clothes."

"I beg your pardon?" I said, frowning.

"Ye've turned up to dinner in your dreshing gown, man."

Robert finds himself sent to Africa to build up a coffee plantation, and there comes into contact with a beautiful slave named Fikre, and he once again finds himself distracted from the task at hand. Instead of concentrating on the problems of getting the coffee plantation running, dealing with the locals he finds himself embarking on a torrid relationship that can only end in disaster, one way or the other.

It is difficult to say much more without giving away too much of the plot, but I will say that later Robert finds himself involved with the passionate, rebellious and somewhat dangerous women who were involved in the suffragette movement and also in efforts to break the coffee trading block that was prevalent at the time enabling a couple of families to dominate the world coffee trade.

Whilst there were glimpses of all the things that I have enjoyed in his previous novels, it seemed to me that the author tried too hard to include too many different elements within the story all framed around an unlikeable character. Whilst he was better by the end, the improvement wasn't enough to overcome the distaste I had for him earlier in the book.

By trying to lend the book various flavours, instead of coming up with an enjoyable brew, we ended up with a muddy cup of sludge.

Pass the instant coffee.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

This also counts as my entry for the letter V for Historical Tapestry's Alphabet in Historical Fiction.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Teaser Tuesday: The Various Flavors of Coffee by Anthony Capella

I am currently reading The Various Flavors of Coffee by Anthony Capella. In the past I have really loved his writing - he has the ability to transport you to a particular place, to a particular meal, to a particular smell. Whilst that is true of this book as well, I am not sure that I really like the main character at this stage of the book. It will be interesting to see how it works out by the time I get to the end of it.

One thing about Capella's writing is that it is very quotable. I don't know about you. I quite often think "that would make a good teaser" as I read a book, even it is Friday! There have been loads of times in this book that thought crossed my mind. In the end, I have chosen a teaser that comes from page 180, and it is actually from a letter that the main character is sending to one of his friends:

Curious, isn't it, how one can come all this way, see so many things, and yet find oneself reflecting not on what is strange and new, but on what one left behind - the strange and old, as it were. What was that line of Horace that was drummed into us at school? Coelum non animum mutant qu trans mare currunt - "Those who chase cross the sea change their skies but not their souls."
Just as an aside, I changed my anti-virus software on my home computer on Sunday night, and now I can't access the internet, so if I am a bit absent this week, that is the reason why. Whatever blogging I am doing will be done from work, and let's face it, I am meant to work when I am at work so it may be a bit sporadic!

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading. Head on over to find out all about it, and how to join in!
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