From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home

From Scratch opens in Aliminusa, a small village in Sicily’s interior. Tembi breaks into an olive grove to scatter the ashes of her late husband, Saro Lupo, fulfilling his dying wish. Tembi recalls meeting Saro, a Sicilian chef, at a Florentine gelateria before reminiscing about their love, the days leading up to his death from a rare cancer, and her grief after his passing. Keen not to upset the Sicilian locals, who disapprove of cremation, Tembi hides her plan to scatter Saro’s ashes. She recalls the resistance she and Saro initially faced from his family, who objected to his relationship with a Black American woman. Careful to avoid the prying eyes of passersby, Tembi rolls under a barbed-wire fence, hoping that fulfilling her husband’s wishes will help her and their daughter, Zoela, to reimagine their lives without him.