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

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After high school, Tembi lived in Italy for a period of time and this is where she met her first husband, Soro Gullo, a Sicilian chef. The couple eventually lived and worked inLos Angeles,California. That’s not necessary.” I now regretted my earlier lie. Hadn’t I played hard to get enough with this guy? How do you know?” Lindsey asked with a wink. She was forever suggesting that Italian men had a predilection for danger. The idea of it thrilled her. The reward of jet lag is a new set of coordinates, a new language, and local delicacies. Italy did not disappoint. Eating my pastries as I looked out the window, on the bus ride from the Rome airport to Florence, I watched the passing cypress trees, hills, and farmhouses. It was like seeing a place for the first time that you felt you had known your whole life. When we finally made it to Florence under the midday summer sun, we stumbled out of the bus near the church of San Lorenzo. By then I realized I couldn’t wait to get away from the bulk of the girls on the exchange program. One transatlantic flight and then a two-hour bus ride was enough.

I was willing to take a risk with him. There was something so utterly confident in his vision of our future. He was unwavering. He saw what he saw, and his every action inducted me into that vision. And I felt safe. Safe to open my heart, to be vulnerable. Safe enough to take a risk on something no one in my family had seen coming—a potential long-distance relationship with an Italian man twelve years older, without a college degree, who was banking on “cooking” as the means of supporting our future together. It was improbable, romantic, idealistic, unprecedented. The journey I was willing to take had no guidelines or examples I could look to in either my own life or the lives of my parents. His parents, from the little he had told me, had been married his whole life and lived in the town where they were born. Saro and I would be making our own way. There was no one with whom we could compare ourselves, no one to whom we could turn to for the ins and outs of long-distance, bicultural, bilingual, biracial love. That was scary, but it was also freeing. As though for the first time in my life, I was making a brave, bold decision of the heart that felt expansive, intuitive, a wish from my soul. Amy leaves her home in Texas and halts her law degree to pursue her passion for art, which takes her to Florence, Italy for a semester.

In 2012, ten years after his diagnosis, Gullo tragically passed away. The book accounts Tembi and their daughter's return to Sicily following his sad death, as was his dying wish. From Scratch started as a book, and speaking about her decision to write the memoir, author Tembi said: "This story had been swelling in my heart for years. Some of it even before Saro passed. I understood that there were aspects of our love story that were rare and beautiful. In this second volume of her poignant autobiographical series, Maya Angelou powerfully captures the struggles and triumphs of her passionate life with dignity, wisdom, humor, and humanity.

Italy had never been in my grand plan. The only grand plan I had at the time was becoming a professional actor after college. I had wanted to be an actor since I remember being conscious. It was the big-picture plan of my life as I could see it, even if I had, as yet, no specific road map as to how to achieve it. It would be a leap. Nor had I planned to leave Wesleyan and its sleepy college town along the Connecticut River, except that I had stumbled into an Art History 101 class at the end of a difficult freshman year. The class was taught by Dr. John Paoletti, a world-renowned Italian Renaissance scholar. On that first day of class, when the lights dimmed in the auditorium and the first slide came up, a Greek frieze from Corinth circa 300 BC, I found myself spellbound. Two semesters of college finally came into focus. Within three weeks, I became an art history major. The next semester I was studying Italian, a requirement to complete my major. By the end of my sophomore year, I had taken up a tepid but steady affair with my Italian TA, Connor. There are many people, maybe even thousands, that you can love. But there are few people,” he continued, his words measured, “maybe only one or two on the planet, that you can love and live with in peace. The peace part is the key.”The eight-part series, starring Zoe Saldana, has touched the hearts of every viewer (and even we were in tears for numerous episodes). I stood up, tingling with a kind of excitement I hadn’t ever felt, and began to make my way upstairs to the main dining room. The crowd had thinned some. It was now mostly Florentine locals dining in duos, but it was still lively. The grainy but wispy jazz vocals of Paolo Conte came through the speakers, the dessert case was nearly empty save a single portion of tiramisù. I blushed when I passed the kitchen to say good night. Tonight has been busy, I could not come down to say hello.” He was unguarded, his ease alluring. “I’ll come by your school tomorrow.” This story had been swelling in my heart for years. Some of it even before Saro passed. I understood that there were aspects of our love story that were rare and beautiful. However, three years after his passing I was seated in Sicily with Zoela and across from us was Nonna. We were at the dinner table at the end of what had been like the perfect summer day. And I had a thought: How did we get here, especially given where we started AND given that the only person connecting us is gone? That question felt like the makings of a book. Yet it was another two years, actually the fifth anniversary of his passing, before I felt ready to write it. I needed to build up my bravery to tell the story.

By the end of the dinner, I was in rapture, satiated, giddy, light-headed with the possibility that Saro was boyfriend material. I briefly considered a cigarette, though I had never smoked in my life.One look at Saro, and something new about him came into crystalline focus. This man, this chef, was showing me who he was deep down, the persistence of his character, his unflinching willingness. He had declared his love, he had laid out his vision, but now he was making that love an action. Standing in the rain, it was as if he were drawing a line in the sand. On one side of it, he showed me the kind of love I could have in my life with a man who was undeterred in his commitment, unafraid, clear about what he wanted—someone determined above all else to stand for love no matter what, no matter how. No matter.

As I left the Ponte Vecchio toward home, I rode past the corner of Borgo San Frediano and Piazza del Carmine, and I looked up at the church across from my apartment. It boasts a fresco believed to be the first known work of the teenage Michelangelo. Firsts are no small things, firsts hold the beginning of something great. I suspected I had just fallen for a bicycle thief chef: and as clichéd as it might sound, it was love at first bite. After reading the book, Reese met with Zoe and they spoke about producing the Netflix series together. But it was Aubrey who could see Saro’s love on view in plain sight. Later, after a walk through Florence, an afternoon of window browsing, and then dinner, she told my dad, “And don’t even think about objecting to their age difference. You and I are also twelve years apart. It’s plain as day how he feels, you do not have to worry about this.” She shot down any lingering doubt, assuaging my father’s concerns. Aubrey was Saro’s ambassador into my clan. However, three years after his passing I was seated in Sicily with Zoela and across from us was Nonna. We were at the dinner table at the end of what had been like the perfect summer day. And I had a thought:How did we get here, especially given where we started AND given that the only person connecting us is gone?That question felt like the makings of a book. Yet it was the fifth anniversary of his passing, before I felt ready to write it." i’m watching #fromscratch on netflix and i went from wanting to eat pasta, to dance in a parking lot, to be happy for a wedding i wasn’t invited to and to visit sicily. i am ugly crying rnAfter graduating from Brown University, student Amahle 'Amy' Wheeler, who is played by Zoe Saldana and based on Tembi, moves to Italy to study abroad. Once there, she meets Lino, played by Eugenio Mastrandrea, and the couple embark on a romantic love story consisting of fantastic food and gorgeous Italian scenery. How does Nonna and Tembi’s relationship evolve over the three summers depicted in the book? What are the major turning points that bring them closer? I listened to this on audio which was narrated by the author herself. Hearing her story through her own voice made this book more impactful for me and I am glad I listened to it rather than read it. This book is for readers looking to learn new machine learning algorithms or understand algorithms at a deeper level. Specifically, it is intended for readers interested in seeing machine learning algorithms derived from start to finish. Seeing these derivations might help a reader previously unfamiliar with common algorithms understand how they work intuitively. Or, seeing these derivations might help a reader experienced in modeling understand how different algorithms create the models they do and the advantages and disadvantages of each one.