From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home

Part 4, “Third Summer,” centers on the theme of healing and focuses on the changes in Tembi’s life and demeanor since Saro’s death. Although Tembi continues to miss Saro, her pain is not as debilitating as it once was, and she describes her “process of continually making peace with loss, taking wobbly steps forward” (265). Alongside Tembi’s sadness, however, are moments of joy, peace, and certainty that Saro is still with her and Zoela. Her descriptions become especially whimsical and lush as she recounts going to bed: “tired but with the vision of plum tomatoes dancing in my head. The child, the daughter of the chef, stirring the pot. How I wish that Saro had been there to see it. Yet somehow I felt he had” (292). Part 4 finds Tembi on the cusp of moving forward with her life, and a key change in this process is her willingness to entertain the idea of having sex after three full years of celibacy. Using yet another culinary analogy, she further underscores the centrality of food in her life and memoirs as she scoffs at a friend’s suggestion that masturbation can replace a sexual partner, stating, “I told her that that was like telling someone who wanted a five-course meal to grab a can of Spam out of the bottom of her earthquake kit. Sure, it would do in a pinch […] but it is no substitute for a well-balanced meal” (264).

Part 4 also describes Tembi’s evolving relationship with Croce and the local community. Tembi’s consistent visits to Aliminusa reinforce her connections to Saro’s family, friends, and large circle of acquaintances. It is during her third summer in Sicily, for example, that Tembi starts calling Croce “mamma” rather than using her given name or calling her Nonna, the Italian word for “grandmother” and the nickname she and Saro first gave her after Zoela’s birth. Normally reserved, Croce acknowledged the sacrifices Tembi made in caring for Saro by declaring, “What you have passed, the years you stood at Saro’s side, you deserve to be rewarded for that” (195). Tembi takes Croce’s words as an invitation to share about her life in LA and her hopes for the future, and Croce tacitly gives Tembi her blessing to move on without Saro, saying, “Going forward no one forgets […] I don’t know if I’m making myself clear” (295). Her meaning is perfectly clear to Tembi, who replies, “My heart will never forget while I carry this life forward” (295).

In this section of her memoirs, Tembi’s sense of belonging in Aliminusa extends beyond Saro’s immediate family, and the deeper roots of this community connection are demonstrated by her unexpected role in resolving a dispute between an English tourist and a local motorist, in which Tembi persuades the Englishman not to pursue an insurance claim because she knows that local witnesses will never take the side of an outsider against one of their own. For Croce, the accident is a key measure of Tembi’s loyalty, for as Tembi states, “Nonna saw this as us versus them. At the same time, she was testing my allegiance and sense of belonging to this place, this community. Behind it all, she was asking if I was a part of her us” (289). Just as Tembi embraces the community as her own, the people of Aliminusa accept her as one of theirs, and this newfound sentiment recurs several times. “Your daughter is one of us” (303), a local man says to Tembi’s father as they walk across town, a sentiment echoed by another local who declares, “We are all the children of God, just look at our hands […] But notice, each finger is different. One is short, one is long, one is crooked. They each do different things. But we are all part of the same family” (303).

The interwoven themes of food and culture continue to play a central role in the closing chapters of Tembi’s memoir, for summer in Sicily is sauce-making season: a highly communal task. Tembi and Zoela participate in the annual tradition, an activity that reminds her of Saro, for she states:

Zoela and I left smelling of smoky eucalyptus wood, basil, onion, and sea salt. It was in our hair, in our clothes, it had seeped into our skin. I was reminded of the way Saro had smelled when he had returned to that tiny apartment in Florence each night… (292).

Tembi also describes the importance of food to Croce: “Food was the center of her family life. Cooking was her second nature” (299). Attuned to family roles and local culture, Zoela explains Croce’s attitude toward food and cooking to her grandparents, saying, “Nonna will never let you do anything in her kitchen […] You are her guest, you just eat. That’s the way it is here” (301).

Tembi frequently employs figurative language to make her sensory and emotional experience more immediate for her reader. In Chapter 17, for example, a distant cousin uses similes to explain how Tembi nurtures connection and community, saying:

The connection you are creating here is like a flower. It requires soil and sun, things that, thanks to God, are given freely. But it is you, all of us, who has to water the flower to make it grow. Without water, all relations remain small. They can’t open, and eventually they die (279).

To match this stylistic approach, Tembi ends her memoir with a simile of her own that explains the nuances of her life with and without Saro. She muses:

Being with Saro had been like weaving a beautiful, complicated tapestry. After his death, being with his family was like looking at the flip side of that tapestry. The stitching showed, the bulky knots, the places where the fringes had frayed. But it was still part of the same beautiful piece (302).