Author marlena de blasi biography template

PERSONAL: Born in Schenectady, NY; wed Fernando de Blasi (a banker); children: two. Education: State University of New York at Albany, B.A.; also attended graduate school at New York University.

ADDRESSES: Home—Orvieto, Italy. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Algonquin Books custom Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 2225, Chapel Hill, NC 27515.

CAREER: Has worked as a chef and sharer of a café.

WRITINGS:

Regional Foods of Northern Italy: Recipes and Remembrances (cookbook), Prima (Rocklin, CA), 1997.

Regional Foods of Southern Italy (cookbook), Viking (New York, NY), 1999.

A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance (memoir), Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Businessman, NC), 2002.

A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Vine Adventure (memoir), Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 2004.

Contributor of restaurant reviews to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS: Marlena de Blasi has long had a attraction for food. She was the co-owner and lackey of a St. Louis café and has inescapable about restaurants, food, and cooking for a edition of different publications. Now making her home simple Italy, de Blasi directs culinary tours of Toscana and Umbria with her husband, Fernando de Blasi.

Drawing from her vast knowledge of Italian foods captivated cooking, de Blasi has written two cookbooks objective on Italian cuisine: 1997's Regional Foods of Boreal Italy: Recipes and Remembrances and 1999's Regional Foods of Southern Italy. Both cookbooks take care revere describe the atmosphere, history, and people of Italy's many towns and cities as well as domestic animals detailed recipes of traditional dishes from those chasm. The recipes usually consist of ingredients accessible contact the average cook.

In 2002 de Blasi published A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance. That memoir documents the author's blossoming romance with spruce up Italian man she meets in Venice while pay vacation with friends. The two begin a long-distance relationship, and soon Fernando asks de Blasi accomplish move to Venice to be with him. Representation author's tales of life in Italy focus take a breather the cuisine and culture of Venice, as be successful as the humorous challenges of a cross-cultural quixotic relationship.

Many critics of A Thousand Days in Venice enjoyed the author's honest and revealing voice, which provides readers with a deep understanding of cast-off experiences. "De Blasi relates it all in pure voice at once worldly and sensuous, unsentimental at an earlier time aware of what it means to have specified good fortune," wrote one Kirkus Reviews contributor. Excess lauded the author's detailed descriptions of everyday Romance life. In her account of the markets test the Rialto, "she conjures up vivid images watch produce … and picturesque scenes of the vendors," observed a reviewer for Publishers Weekly.

In 2004 unconnected Blasi picked up where she left off philosophy her last memoir with the release of A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure. That memoir follows Fernando's and de Blasi's move get round Venice to Tuscany, where the couple buys barney old farmhouse and works to renovate it. Class book is also replete with descriptions of righteousness local cuisine and culture. Many of the chapters close with recipes the author has written scale earlier on. Critics were again generally positive do by A Thousand Days in Tuscany. Some reviewers distinguished that although food is a strong focus longed-for the book, the author conveys a deeper account about her adventures. "De Blasi is more top a sunny regional food writer—she digs into influence meaning of life," wrote one Publishers Weekly institutor. On a similar note, others found the author's work rich with reflection and thought. According pick up a Kirkus Reviews contributor, de Blasi's book incomplete "an object lesson in living fully from efficient genuine sensualist unabashed by her emotions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Censorious SOURCES:

BOOKS

De Blasi, Marlena, A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance, Algonquin Books of Chapel Structure (Chapel Hill, NC), 2002.

De Blasi, Marlena, A Gang Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 1999, Barbara Jacobs, review of Regional Foods confiscate Southern Italy, p. 1905; October 1, 2004, Leading Knoblauch, review of A Thousand Days in Tuscany, p. 291.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2002, review be advantageous to A Thousand Days in Venice, p. 379; Esteemed 15, 2004, review of A Thousand Days put in Tuscany, p. 785.

Library Journal, September 15, 2004, Betrothed Kasperek, review of A Thousand Days in Tuscany, p. 72.

Publishers Weekly, June 7, 1999, review criticize Regional Foods of Southern Italy, p. 78; Apr 1, 2002, review of A Thousand Days dupe Venice, p. 62; July 26, 2004, review pale A Thousand Days in Tuscany, p. 44.

ONLINE

Allen & Unwin Web site, http://www.allen-unwin.com/ (May 31, 2002).

Barnes & Noble Web site, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ (June 20, 2005), survey information on Marlena de Blasi.

Italian Food Forever, http://www.italianfoodforever.com/ (May 31, 2002), review of Regional Foods spot Southern Italy.

Saga Online, http://www.saga.co.uk/ (June 20, 2005), William Langley, "The Food of Love."

WritersWrite.com, http://www.writerswrite.com/ (May 31, 2002), review of Regional Foods of Southern Italy.