Cooking with Fernet Branca (Gerald Samper, #1)

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Cooking with Fernet Branca (Gerald Samper stories)

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 615 ratings · 147 reviews

"A playful book, full of fun and games. There is so much pleasure to be had from Hamilton-Paterson's delight in language and wicked way with unreliable narrators. . . . The book's effect is achieved almost entirely through the comic magnetism of a single character."-"The Times Literary Supplement" "A skillful, highly original writer. . . . The elegant language, witty aside...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published September 1st 2005 by Europa Editions (first published June 3rd 2004)

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Apr 25, 2013 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former Soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd c...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Merchant-Ivory

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Kelly

Shelves: 2011, in-italy, in-by-of-england, reviewed, the-knights-who-say-meh

The British novelist uses leisurely travel in Italy the way others use shipwrecks or being trapped on the top a a freezing mountain or going into combat. It's a way to explore the nature of the British character out of his (or her) element, showing us both the best and worst of the individual and the national character, like Lord of the Flies but with adults. Sometimes, they are hopeful for their compatriots (the good); sometimes, they despair of them, giving us little that is good or kind to la...more The British novelist uses leisurely travel in Italy the way others use shipwrecks or being trapped on the top a a freezing mountain or going into combat. It's a way to explore the nature of the British character out of his (or her) element, showing us both the best and worst of the individual and the national character, like Lord of the Flies but with adults. Sometimes, they are hopeful for their compatriots (the good); sometimes, they despair of them, giving us little that is good or kind to latch onto (the bad); and sometimes they just rip off someone else's story and make us watch (the ugly).

The good: A Room With a View, The Enchanted April.

The bad: Where Angels Fear to Tread, Cooking with Fernet Branca.

The ugly: Love in Idleness.

I happen to like the first two categories, usually in some combination, (and the third, well, I'm just warning you about that one). So I was disappointed in this book and disappointed in myself for not liking it. It's got a lot of the right elements: it's very funny, the novelist is poking at a certain type of Brit (perhaps one who likes to write books like A Year in Provence). There is food, endlessly described, but the author is making fun of that process while he's doing it. It's ironic, in that way, that's so appealing to readers who like to laugh at people, but intellectually, as if it matters how one is laughed at?

I can't laugh that long. The farce-like events were too much for me. The blindness of the protagonist to his foibles was uncomfortable for me, not funny. And I was bored. The story is told in a dual perspective. First one tells us about an event, then the other character repeats the events, from her perspective. It gives a great view into the difference between how this particular British character perceives himself and what he really looks like. It was funny for the first couple of chapters even but then it was boring. No event is so funny that it should be repeated only a few pages later and most of the events weren't funny enough to warrant one telling, let alone two.

I'm still feeling bad about this book. It's really clever. I expect other people to like its farcical nature. It just didn't work for me. I bet it would make a great film though.(less)

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Jan 08, 2012 Isabel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lychees on Toast

Ingredients
Lychees (tinned)
Olive oil
Peanut butter
Hard cheese
Toast
Anchovies
Tabasco sauce

A humorous tale set in Tuscany and told alternately from the point of view of Gerald, an Englishman who makes his living ghostwriting sportsmen's autobiographies, and his neighbour Marta, a composer from a family of gangsters from the former-USSR, who is currently working on the score for an Italian director's latest film. Each finds the other's presence irritating, as they had both hoped that...more

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Feb 11, 2009 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 26, 2009 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: glbt, funnylight

Witty and goofy, complex, farcical. Lots of somewhat contradictory adjectives come to mind. The recipes are truly horrendous and therefore truly hilarious. The plot is bizarre and entertaining. The two main characters take turns telling their stories in first person, and their differences and similarities are fascinating to watch develop. A fun and twisted book. I love the fact that this was nominated for a Booker prize--not what you'd think was a typical nominee!

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Dec 08, 2008 Joel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up on a whim after seeing another book by the same author on a display table at Vroman's. It's an easy-read - the plot is negligible, but the characters are funny and the dual first-person narration is delightfully bookish and chatty. The main character is an (implicitly) gay English ex-pat author in Italy, and a bit of a stereotype in broad outline - but the delight is in the details here. An extra pleasure for those with Anglomane tendencies. Overall, it's a book that is easy to...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

COOKING WITH FERNET BRANCA. (2004). James Hamilton-Paterson. *****.
I always get excited when I discover a new (to me) writer whose books are both well written and interesting. This writer is one of those. This is the first novel I’ve read by him, but rest assured that it won’t be the last. The author lives and works in Italy, but is thoroughly English. I don’t know who we have in the U. S. that is like him, but the closest I can think of is Bill Bryson. This novel is both literate and comic. It...more COOKING WITH FERNET BRANCA. (2004). James Hamilton-Paterson. *****.
I always get excited when I discover a new (to me) writer whose books are both well written and interesting. This writer is one of those. This is the first novel I’ve read by him, but rest assured that it won’t be the last. The author lives and works in Italy, but is thoroughly English. I don’t know who we have in the U. S. that is like him, but the closest I can think of is Bill Bryson. This novel is both literate and comic. It was nominated for the 2004 MAN Booker Prize. This is the first in a trilogy, and introduces us to two main characters: Gerald Samper and Marta. Gerald is a writer, a ghost writer. He specializes in ‘autobiographies’ of famous sports stars – although by the end of the book he does take on a rock star. He has purchased a villa in northern Tuscany that is relatively isolated so that he can concentrate on his writing. According to the estate agent, the nearest house to his is only occupied one month a year by vacationers. Marta (I’m not sure whether I ever caught her last name. No matter.), he soon discovers, is his neighbor. She bought the house next to his for the same reason: solitude, in which she can concentrate on her writing music for film scores. Marta is from Voynovia, a country that was recently a part of the Soviet bloc. She has escaped from her family – especially her domineering father – in order to set her spirits free. In Voynovia, women, in particular, daughters, are second-class citizens, and live under the thumbs of their male relatives. She is of an indeterminate age; late 30s (?), and no fashion model. She speaks both a pidgin English and a pidgin Italian. Gerald speaks excellent English, of course, and a passable Italian. He is also a devoted and creative chef. His style is to juxtapose ingredients that are not normally admixed to produce a totally new taste sensation. Many of his recipes are given in the text. As you might have guessed, the two neighbors are immediately like oil and water. The clash of cultures and languages leads to anything but the peace and quiet they were both seeking. These clashes come in the form of riotous situations that will have you laughing as you read along. It is difficult to write a humorous novel, but this author seems to have mastered it completely. Highly recommended.
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Dec 31, 2010 Wendell rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. If you like your farce broad and your humor homophobic and ethnic, you might enjoy this feeble attempt at the comic-novel genre. It’s no wonder that Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage in, so to speak, “art”) blurbed this book: Dame Edna, too, has difficulty steering clear of wog jokes and cracks about dog-eating Asians, and Hamilton-Paterson is enthusiastically carrying the tradition forward. Sure, it’s all in good fun (noodge, noodge, wink, wink). What’s always interesting about “I can say anyt...more If you like your farce broad and your humor homophobic and ethnic, you might enjoy this feeble attempt at the comic-novel genre. It’s no wonder that Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage in, so to speak, “art”) blurbed this book: Dame Edna, too, has difficulty steering clear of wog jokes and cracks about dog-eating Asians, and Hamilton-Paterson is enthusiastically carrying the tradition forward. Sure, it’s all in good fun (noodge, noodge, wink, wink). What’s always interesting about “I can say anything I want” comedy, though, is that it’s a lot like the so-called “free market.” It doesn’t actually exist because someone always has to pay for it. Similarly, a really good question to ask about _Cooking with Fernet Branca _is: Who’s picking up the bill for these jokes? The novel is (somewhat irritatingly) divided into two voices which narrate alternating sections of the book – the flaming and punctilious Brit expat, Mr. Samper, and his neighbor, Marta, a refugee from a former Eastern bloc country whose inhabitants we are supposed to understand are backward, simple, and prone to involvement in organized crime. Taking turns, they say mean, bitchy, slanderous things about one another. In most cases, H-P allows the aggrieved party to respond in his or her chapter-length monologues to what the other has said or, at least, to provide information that rounds out the picture. For example: early in the book, each neighbor speculates about what the other could possibly be doing to earn a living, given that s/he has no talent and is clearly some kind of hanger-on/wannabe/third-rate hack. But then Samper and Marta actually reveal, in their respective chapters, that they have real professions and are practicing them with at least a modicum of success (sufficient to allow each of them to buy a buy house in the hills above the Tuscan coast, at any rate). See how that works? First, catty speculation about the other’s alcoholism/parentage/sexual habits, then an ‘explanation’ that makes it clear how wrongly they see one another. Busybody neighbors getting up to gossip and rumor-mongering. Fun for the entire family, in an entirely trite sort of way. Only thing is, not every aspersion is countered. Marta, e.g., immediately labels Samper a “dudi,” which one is meant to understand as a slang term in her native tongue that is roughly equivalent to “faggot.” Indeed, Samper serves as the novel’s principal figure of fun. While Marta, in her chapters, manages to come across as a genuine human being, Samper remains a queen, an idiot, and a clown. Ah, but H-P never actually comes out and has Samper say that he’s queer, does he? If you, Gentle Reader, make that assumption on the basis of the collection of stereotypes that the author has assembled, that can only mean *you’re* the homophobic one, right? Well, James, actually not. What it means is that you’re something of a coward as a writer and a bit of a bigot in creating a Hysterical Queen character who never actually gets to respond to (or rise above) the charge of being a “dudi,” and who, in the end, remains no more than that. There’s something slightly venomous, that is, in the novel’s portrayal of Samper. H-P gives Marta at least a hint of depth, dimension, and motivation; Samper remains a gay Stepin Fetchit who never claws his way out of the 1950s-ish Quentin Crisp impersonation in which the author has imprisoned him (though Crisp, at least, had personal dignity). Ridi pagliaccio.(less)

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Oct 20, 2009 Bonnie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Bonnie by: oriana

Shelves: fiction, recommended, reviewed-books

I am laughing again as I turn to this, on page four: The day has dawned bright in every sense and I am making good progress up a ladder painting the kitchen – the most important room in the house – in contrasting shades of mushroom and eau de Nil. Anyone can do the white-walls-and-black-beams bit, but it takes aesthetic confidence and an original mind to make something of a Tuscan mountain farmhouse that isn’t merely Frances Mayes. It also takes a complete absence of salt-of-the-earth peasants a...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Stacia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, europa-editions, man-booker

After you've read too many lovely, wish-you-were-here travel memoirs & foodie books, Cooking with Fernet Branca is the amusing & biting antidote. I thoroughly enjoyed this parody & it had me literally laughing out loud at times. I'd give it 3.5 stars overall; I'll round it up to 4 stars because it made me laugh out loud when reading at Starbucks.

P.S. Don't read this book while eating... for two reasons.
1) You may choke on your food from laughing.
2) The included 'recipes' are revoltin...more After you've read too many lovely, wish-you-were-here travel memoirs & foodie books, Cooking with Fernet Branca is the amusing & biting antidote. I thoroughly enjoyed this parody & it had me literally laughing out loud at times. I'd give it 3.5 stars overall; I'll round it up to 4 stars because it made me laugh out loud when reading at Starbucks.

P.S. Don't read this book while eating... for two reasons.
1) You may choke on your food from laughing.
2) The included 'recipes' are revolting. LOL.

Two foreigners, Gerald & Marta, have bought neighboring houses in Italy, each hoping for a beautiful location that's peaceful. Gerald wants to concentrate on his career (ghostwriter of athlete autobiographies) & (heinous) cooking; Marta wants to concentrate on her career as a composer (currently working on a movie soundtrack for a famous Italian director). Both are rather put out to discover each other, since having a neighbor leads to all kinds of interruptions, misread intentions, noise, etc.... Here's a fun quote from early in the book after Gerald went to dinner at neighbor Marta's house:

"Things are looking good. Two days have now gone by since our dinner and nary a squeak out of Marta. I'm counting this as a culinary triumph: the ingenious use of food as an offensive weapon. Garlic ice cream with Fernet Branca may lack subtlety but it is highly effective and I feel that by giving you the recipe I have placed a pacifist's version of Clint Eastwood's famous .44 Magnum in your hands. "Make my evening, Marta," I might have said. And to my amazement she did, taking not one but three massive helpings. If I were a good neighbour I would have dropped in on her by now to make sure she is still alive. But I'm not, so I haven't."

--------------------

I had an hour alone at Starbucks today to start this book. (Ah, lovely!) Within a few minutes, I was sniggering so much that I actually snorted out loud. (This as I was trying so hard to keep my laughing to myself as I sat there alone -- you know, I didn't want to be tagged as the crazy lady at that table over there....) Oh well....

Obviously, so far, so good on this one!

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Jul 15, 2010 Rowena rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: man-booker-list, unbelievablereads

No summary is better than the one already patly written on this site. "Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misun...more

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May 31, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Having read this almost a decade ago, I decided to see if this hysterical and charming book lived up to my memories of reading it. Thankfully, it did in spades!

Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include 'Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic' and 'Fernet Branca Ice Cream'. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters, notably male m...more Having read this almost a decade ago, I decided to see if this hysterical and charming book lived up to my memories of reading it. Thankfully, it did in spades!

Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include 'Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic' and 'Fernet Branca Ice Cream'. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters, notably male members of her family. She is a composer in a neo-folk style who claims to be writing a score for a trendy Italian film director. The neighbours' lives disastrously intertwine. The entourages of the rock star and the director come and go; mysterious black helicopters bring news of mayhem in Voynova, Marta's homeland; and along the way the English obsession with Tuscany is satirized mercilessly.

We all have at least one Gerald in our lives. We all have at least one Marta. And we all live for the day that some dinner party puts them sitting next to each other. We know fireworks are going to ensue, for all of the wrong reasons. And that is what makes this book such a delight.

Told in alternating narrative perspectives, we get to see how simple events and misunderstandings can be viewed in entirely different ways by each party. How prejudices and preconceptions run both ways. How no one is every quite what you think they are. And how sometimes the best laid plans for revenge are foiled by different tastes in ice-cream.

And through all of the sniping, cattiness, neighbourly battles, bizarre recipes, bald rockstars, lothario film directors, Eastern European mobsters and English colonial attitudes, we get to watch these two miss matched individuals thrown together by circumstance form a true friendships.

Did I mention it's hysterically funny as well?

Hamilton-Paterson is fantastic writing in both voices and does it so convincingly that I actually took to Google to check if a few of his more outlandish (but maybe just slightly plausible things) were fact or fiction. Let's just say Google returns some interesting items using "Smoked Cat" for a search string.

This book won't tickle everyone the way it did me but I loved it. I'm glad I decided to re-read it, and will most likely do so again. But first... I have to get my hands on the two sequels!

4/5 (less)

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Sep 15, 2011 Trish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british, cooking, europe, fiction, funny, adventure, travel, italy, russia

Whatever else we can say about James Hamilton-Paterson, he is a very funny man. If you ever found yourself in the Italian countryside gazing at the villa next door and wondering who lives there and who, for gosh sakes, is coptering in and out, after reading this novel, you may very well decide you don’t really want to know. It may be entangling, and may, after all, be the end of all you hold dear.

Gerald Samper, British biographer to the rich and famous, buys an old villa in need of repair in Tus...more Whatever else we can say about James Hamilton-Paterson, he is a very funny man. If you ever found yourself in the Italian countryside gazing at the villa next door and wondering who lives there and who, for gosh sakes, is coptering in and out, after reading this novel, you may very well decide you don’t really want to know. It may be entangling, and may, after all, be the end of all you hold dear.

Gerald Samper, British biographer to the rich and famous, buys an old villa in need of repair in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps region. He is told, as is his nearby neighbor, that the owner of the nearby villa is rarely in residence so his quest for privacy and solitude is guaranteed. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the resident of the villa he can see from his own is none other than a well-to-do refugee from a Soviet republic, with all her entangling connections.

Samper likes cooking, and we are treated to recipes inspired by the abundant local produce, but dreamt up entirely within the convoluted confines of Samper’s own twisted mind: Mussels in Chocolate, say, or Baked Pears in Gorgonzola with Cinnamon Cream, Lampreys in Sherry, Alien Pie, which features smoked cat mixed with baby beets, nasturtium leaves, pureed prunes, and green bacon (what on earth…?), or my personal favorite, Tuna Stuffed with Prunes in Marmite Butter. But Samper deprecates (with good reason) the specialties his neighbor offers him, delicacies delivered direct from the former Soviet republic of Voynovia. As described by Samper:

”…brightly colored voynovian objects that were delicate to the same extent that traffic cones are. There were awesome pellets like miniature doughnuts wrapped in candied angelica leaf and injected with chili sauce. Others looked like testicles set in dough. I gathered these were pigeon’s eggs and couldn’t catch her name for them although the phrase that came to me immediately was Christ on a Tricycle. Spearmint eggs?”

But this book is not about cooking, despite the title. It is about living the good life in Tuscany among other artists—writers, musicians, filmmakers, realtors--magicians of all stripes. And what of Fernet Branca? It is a digestif concocted in Italy that, given as a gift to the new arrivals of Le Roccie, is purchased a second time to return the courtesy, and becomes a central feature of the misunderstandings among the residents and visitors there. It is described in Wikipedia as having the flavor of “black-licorice-flavored Listerine."
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Sep 06, 2010 Cameling rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor

Hilarious. Simply hilarious.

A Englishman buys a house in the mountains of Italy seeking quiet for his writing. He sings arias while he invents the most bizarre recipes, the products of which he sometimes shares with his aggravating neighbor, a woman from Voynovia, who generously shares bottles of Fernet Branca with him. She claims to be a musician and composer in town to compose music for a film by a famous Italian director.

Their experiences of living as neighbors differ depending on who does t...more

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Mar 01, 2010 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

A witty & hilarious satire of all the "A Year in Provence," "Under the Tuscan Sun" books that romanticize the expat life in Europe. Once again, an overly-refined Brit goes to Italy to follow his writing muse. Please note -- he is a ghostwriter of biographies for celebrities, not a Nobel nominee. That fact does not limit his pretensions whatsoever. Settling into his quaint abode, he is horrified when his new neighbor moves in. Also an expat, she is fleeing her crimelord, overprotective family...more

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Sep 10, 2010 Mary Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars

almost as good as Rancid Pansies - difficult to read a series backward - characters are still growing into what they become in the book you’ve already read - still, interesting to hear the two voices, Marta’s and Gerald’s - best line: “Even that witty old fag-hag Jane Austen started one of her incomparable novels - was it Donna? - with the telling sentence ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a good man in possession of a wife must be in want of a tidy fortune.’ Otherwise, the usual GS...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Elias Mendoza rated it 2 of 5 stars

A witty book that wears thin by the end. The author did well to underscore different perspectives of happenings and events by structuring the book so that both main characters narrate their version of each. Not every event was worthy of such presentation, so the book wears a little thin. The structure also then forces the book to focus on the events and not on the development of the relationship between the two characters. Because of the style, the actual story takes long to come together and ul...more

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Sep 12, 2009 oriana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to oriana by: Joyce

Shelves: read-2009, the-new-new-new-new-thing

I didn't manage to read this in Mexico, though I was told it would be the perfect smart-person airplane book, but I did pick it up as soon as I got back, and it was very much as promised: dryly hilarious, fast-moving, clever, and a whole lot of fun.

Cooking With Fernet Branca is dual-ly narrated by two next-door neighbors living on the Italian countryside: Gerard Samper, a very proper Englishman and self-proclaimed "master chef" (more on that soon), who makes his money ghostwriting autobiographi...more I didn't manage to read this in Mexico, though I was told it would be the perfect smart-person airplane book, but I did pick it up as soon as I got back, and it was very much as promised: dryly hilarious, fast-moving, clever, and a whole lot of fun.

Cooking With Fernet Branca is dual-ly narrated by two next-door neighbors living on the Italian countryside: Gerard Samper, a very proper Englishman and self-proclaimed "master chef" (more on that soon), who makes his money ghostwriting autobiographies for idiotic sports stars; and Marta, a somewhat bumpkin-ish composer from Eastern Europe (Voynovia, actually) who has been commissioned to write a film score for a famous arty and controversial Italian film director.

So. Gerard and Marta are incredibly well-drawn characters, from her pidgin English and lovingly frazzled appearance to his fastidious mannerisms and constant stream of sarcastic inner monologue. They are both a bit unreliable as narrators, which is done with great subtlety at times, and then become very overt when the narrative switches sides and we get to see the same scene retold through the other's eyes. Their relationship is so complex, so changing, so real, that it carries the entire book brilliantly.

See, they hate each other. I mean, each was told when they bought their houses that their immediate neighbor was quiet and calm, and would only be home maybe one month out of the year. But Marta's brother keeps stopping by in a helicopter in the middle of the night, and Gerard sings horrifically off-key opera while he avoids work by loudly building fences and other such, and each drives the other totally crazy with their drunkenness and terrifying cooking.

And oh, the cooking!! This is where the book's darkest humor shimmers horrifyingly. Gerard, who punctuates his sections with explicitly detailed recipes, loves to cook. And the things he cooks are...well...not for the faint of heart. Examples include: stuffed udder in butterscotch sauce, smoked cat pot pie, parrots 'n' carrots, horse custard, and more and more. In fact, one of the subtle ways in which he wages war with Marta is with cuisine mépriseur, the cuisine of contempt. She – though unwittingly – does about the same thing, by always trying to feed him homemade Voynovian treats, which are every bit as horrifying to his palate as his deep-fried mice would be to hers.

In any case, of course, they bicker and fight and scheme and plot, and eventually work their way into one another's good graces, more or less. There is much much more to this book than I have let on here, but I hope I have at least...whet some appetites, as it were, because I really think James Hamilton-Paterson ought to be better known. I plan to get both the other books he's written about Gerard and Marta tout suite, before the fall ends and I am expected to read more, er, serious literature. (less)

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Dec 31, 2007 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hilarious. The narrator is a pompous twit through and through, that's what makes it great. Interspersed with recipes that get progressively more and more insane, and I think they all include a bit of mankind's most vile aperitif -- fernet branca.

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Feb 24, 2010 Shimone Samuel rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up on a whim while traveling in New York. Admittedly "Fernet Branca" caught my eye so I took a chance after reading the cover which described "a work of comic genius".

I wouldn't go so far as to call it comic genius (for me that's David Cross) but by the end I was indeed laughing - right out loud. The "recipes" in this book were downright ridiculous but mostly it was a novel told from the perspective of two neighbors.

As the story unfolded I was struck by how illogical the perce...more

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Dec 30, 2009 Kasa Cotugno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: genre-humor-satire

Hamilton-Paterson flawlessly folds Into this souffle folded many ingredients seemingly disparate, resulting in hilarity and desire for more. Told in alternating voices, the plot soars hilariously. Marta, a composer from Eastern Europe, and Gerald, a ghost-writing ex-pat from England, live in mutual disharmony, misdirection and misunderstanding on a Tuscan hilltop. It helps, but is not necessary, for the reader to be somewhat knowledgeable about Pier Paolo Pasolini, East European mafia, gourmet c...more

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May 31, 2007 janis rated it 5 of 5 stars

one of the funniest books i've ever read.

"Incidentally, this is the only recipe I know [for "Otter with Lobster Sauce"] that is associated with a curse."
other recipes include "smoked cat" and "mussels in chocolate".

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Jul 29, 2009 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a hilarious book. I discovered it serendipitously, after reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", I was searching for other books published by Europa Editions, as they seem to specialize in interesting and unique books.

Took me a chapter to realize that the book is a satire or spoof of sorts--at first I found it a bit pretentious and then realized it was making fun of books like "Under the Tuscan Sun" that have been so highly recommended. And the trend to put recipes in books--some of th...more

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Apr 13, 2009 Libby rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Jack Russell haters

Shelves: comedy

I can sum up this one in two words - wickedly hilarious. It had me laughing out loud, something I do unfortunately all too rarely whilst reading these days. It manages to poke fun at some recent cultural obsessions - boy bands, UFOs, Tuscan villas, cooking, DIY projects, filmmaking, sports celebrities, the new Europe and issues of gay mens innate tastefulness. The book is a great diversion from the everyday humdrum - a tasty morsel of wit and humour that left me wanting more. I think I will chec...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Michael Harris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended by my daughter as a "laugh out loud" fictional spoof of escaping to live and cook in Tuscany. For me it was a fun diversion from my usual biography and history fare. I must admit that the joy for me in the other ex-pat escape stories centered on the food and wine that I have read in the past were totally missing in the really "black humor" cooking recipes that Paterson dreamed up. I was also amused to learn that Fernet Branca does exist but since it is an acquired taste, I think I'll...more

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Apr 12, 2011 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Andrew by: Bethany

Shelves: humor, favorites

I hesitated to give this book 5 stars only because I may just be so relieved to have enjoyed a book after a long succession of vanilla before it. But after looking backwards through my list of books I've read until finding the last book I enjoyed so much, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I've decided that, yes, it earned those stars.

The book is told from the points of view of two alternating narrators who are neighbors in Tuscany. Gerald is an uptight narcissist who loves his s...more

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Apr 11, 2009 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Alison by: Jennifer

Shelves: humor

This is the story of two neighbors living in Tuscany. They were both looking for solitude and a beautiful view. Each was told by (the same) realtor that they had a foreign neighbor who was only present one month per year and was very quiet. And so begins a classic comedy of errors... It reminds me (a little) of Alexander McCall Smith's Portuguese Irregular Verbs series.
The best part of the book is the recipes. Gerald Samper fancies himself a culinary genius. He is definitely not afraid to experi...more

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Jan 10, 2011 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2010

I loved this book. Wonderful, dry humour with just the right touch of the outrageous to keep it fun. The characters are nicely drawn - a pompous boob of a ghostwriter of sports biographies and a movie songwriter from and unheard-of east European breakaway republic with siblings of dubious character.
Fernet Branca, a foul Italian apperitiv, plays a recurring role.
Anyone wanting to spend a few fun-filled hours could do much worse than this book.

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Sep 20, 2009 Emily Morris rated it 4 of 5 stars

James Hamilton-Paterson's books are not high art but what fun. I read them in totally the wrong order having found the third sitting on a table in Daunt Books. The anti-hero Gerald Samper is a comic delight and someone I'd have round to dinner any day of the week! I have already bought the series for one friend as a presssie and my husband is looking for a bottle of Fernet Branca in order to follow his smoke cat recipe.

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Jul 05, 2012 Dana Defebbo rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book for a Book Club. Based on the description, I don't think I would have read it on my own.

This review will be a little half-hearted because I read the book half-heartedly. I mostly found the characters to be annoying and whiny. If not for the book club, I would have stopped reading about a third of the way into the book.

It is not a hard read, but I found the dialog to be unrealistic. Perhaps if you read the book with a type of parody in mind then it might be a little more appeal...more

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About James Hamilton-Paterson

James Hamilton-Paterson's work has been translated into many languages. He is a highly acclaimed author of non-fiction books, including Seven-Tenths, Three Miles Down and Playing with Water, as well as America's Boy, a study of Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines. Gerontius, his first novel, won the Whitbread Award, while his most recent, Loving Monsters (2001), was praised by the Sunday Telegrap...more

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Seven Tenths: The Sea and Its Thresholds

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“The chef who cooks without a song on his lips cannot hope to infuse the right carefree improvisatory note into his art.” — 5 people liked it

“Racism. . . . fuelled by bitter assertions that no immigrant ever has the least respect for the environment in his adopted country because he never really believes it's his.” — 4 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40.Cooking_with_Fernet_Branca?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347656745l/40.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40.Cooking_with_Fernet_Branca?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson[/url]

Cooking with Fernet Branca (Gerald Samper stories)

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