Frances Mayes

Buying a villa in the spectacular Italian countryside is a wonderful fantasy -- even if 17 rooms and a garden in need of immediate loving care are included in the asking price. Frances Mayes -- gourmet cook, widely published travel writer, and poet -- changed her life by doing just that. Sprinkled liberally with delicious recipes for inspired Italian dishes, amusing anecdotes about the risks of being your own contractor, and a savvy traveler's reminiscences,...

-- USA Today -- Under the Tuscan SunUnder the Tuscan Sun revisits the book’s most popular characters.

"A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of Tuscany, about coming of age in the Deep South and the region's powerful influence on her life. The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes revisits the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia. With her signature style and grace, Mayes explores the power of landscape, the...

"Pasta Veloce offers a multitude of under-30-minute, luscious recipes, all accompanied by Mayes's evocative text. While there are numerous pasta cookbooks, few feature a true Italophile's passion and eye for detail that can get a dish to the table in, asMayes describes, 'the time it takes to boil water.' From a Tagliatelle with Duck Confit, Chestnuts, and Coffee Reduction to a glittering Capellini with Golden Caviar to the perfect vodka sauce, Pasta...

The author who captured the experience of starting a new life in Tuscany expands her horizons to immerse herself--and her readers--in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new special places. This book is a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. She rents houses among ordinary residents, shops at neighborhood markets, wanders...

Text and photographs celebrate Tuscany's feasts, festivals, food, wine, people, and culture.

Lose yourself in the transporting photography of the food, the people, and the place, as Francess lyrical introductions and headnotes put you by her side in the kitchen and raising a glass at the table. From Antipasti (starters) to Dolci (desserts), this cookbook is organized like a traditional Italian dinner. The more than 150 tempting recipes include:· Fried Zucchini Flowers· Red Peppers Melted with Balsamic Vinegar·...

While on vacation, a just-divorced writer buys a villa in Tuscany on a whim, hoping it will be the start of a change for the better in her life. Along the way she finds that sometimes what seems like a mistake is really a blessing.