What I Ate in One Year: (and related thoughts)

It wore on me. Lots of name dropping (I get it), an endlessly fabulous life with a few bad meals.

It's basically a diary focused on the food he ate over the course of a year, padded with anecdotes about his family life and famous friends (lots of name dropping). Tucci reads the audiobook and I love his voice but it was soothing and often faded into the background too much too keep my attention all the time.

There were also points when he was talking about his wife, Felicity, that were a little uncomfortable and derogatory towards her work. I couldn't tell if he actually meant what he said or if it was "dry humor." Even his intonation didn't help.

I absolutely loved reading this book. The combination diary/memoir/cookbook was wonderful. Also, knowing a lot of Stanley's work, I could hear him speaking throughout.

If you loved Taste, this one is for you. If you haven’t read that yet, start there. Tucci’s conversational style, sense of humor, and love of food make this such a fun read. I loved the diary style, which reminded me of the Alan Rickman book. We see one year of dinner parties, nights at home, lunch on the go, and airport food through his eyes. I highly recommend the audiobook, which he narrates. It makes the whole experience just delightful.

Stanley Tucci is one of those celebrities who seems to be able to do anything: act, direct, produce, write – and, yes, cook and proselytize for good food, whether in Italy, the land of his ancestors, the United States, the land of his birth, or England, where he lives now.

Those who watched Searching for Italy, in which Tucci traveled about that country eating and cooking the best dishes in each region will find his new book, What I Ate in One Year as delicious as any fresh pasta dish. The book does precisely as one would expect from the title: it's a foodie's diary, with accounts of excellent dishes wherever he found them, from sandwiches to elegant feasts in the best restaurants. Italian cuisine is the star player -- hardly a day passes without at least some pasta in it somewhere -- but Tucci also talks about eating Japanese, Eastern European and other cuisines with equal gusto.

But perhaps the best part of the book is that Tucci doesn't limit himself to food. He talks about all sorts of love, from his love for his first wife (who died of cancer) and his current wife, his children, his parents, his friends. He talks about growing older. He talks about loss, and the fear of loss. He talks about ambition and celebrity and exercise and acting and the fleetingness of time. One comes away from the book wishing she were Tucci's friend, or at least could get an hour or so to sit in conversation with him over an excellent meal.

The book is written in short chapters that should make it easier to stop and do something else when necessary, but which had the opposite effect on me: I kept thinking I'd read just one more short entry before doing this, that or the other, and easily found myself about 50 pages down the road before I could tear myself away. He is gently humorous, self-deprecating and charming. What I Ate in One Year was a joy to read.