A young girl is growing up in San Giovanni, Italy, a remote village in the southern corner of the country, waiting for her parents to return from “poor America,” i.e. Canada. Living with her aunt, grandmother, and four other siblings, she is raised on the life lessons that come from cooking and the value of knowing what to do with the ingredients once you have them.
Bread, Wine & Angels sees village life through the innocent eyes of the young child as she listens to wiser women tell her the place of a girl, yet watches these women live lives quite the opposite. Her struggles are felt as she attempts to get an education, always waiting and dreaming of America—the home of the brave and the land of the free.
Each chapter opens with a life lesson of its own—a recipe for a classic Italian staple, passed on just as it would in a kitchen:
Vinegar
Take a bottle of good wine
Abandon it
Don’t care for it
Don’t seal it
Don’t filter it
In no time at all you will have vinegar
