Keeping the Feast

One Couple's Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy

By: Paula Butturini

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Paula and John met in Italy, fell in love, and married in Rome four years later. But less than a month after the wedding, tragedy struck. They had transferred from their Italian paradise to Warsaw and, while reporting on an uprising in Romania, John was shot and nearly killed by sniper fire. Although he recovered from his physical wounds in less than a year, the process of healing had just begun. Unable to regain his equilibrium, he sank into a deep sadness that reverberated throughout their relationship.

It was the abrupt end of what they'd known together and the beginning of a new phase of life neither had planned for. All of a sudden, Paula was forced to reexamine her marriage, her husband, and herself. Paula began to reconsider all of her previous assumptions about healing. She discovered that sometimes patience can be a vice and anger a virtue; that sometimes it is vital to make demands of the sick that they show signs of getting better. And she rediscovered the importance of the most fundamental of human rituals: the daily sharing of food around the family table. A universal story of hope and healing, Keeping the Feast is an account of one couple's triumph over tragedy and illness, and a celebration of the simple rituals of life, even during the worst life crises.

Beautifully written and tremendously moving, Paula's story is a testament to the extraordinary sustaining powers of food and love, and to the stubborn belief that there is always an afterward---there is always hope.

©2010 Paula Butturini (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

“If food is love and love heals, does that mean that food heals? Paula Butturini proves the equation in gorgeous yet unadorned prose. I will never, ever forget this book.” (Patricia Volk, author of Stuffed)

Watered Down

Renee Raudman's performance is excellent and Paula Butturini's writing is beautiful. The question is how much do you want to know about preparing fresh baby food the Italian way.

Butturini paints a vivid picture of rich food in full color and tells a tale of such pain it is difficult to control the growing lump in your throat. Until Butturini breaks to describe food in the Italian market and you lose track of who was in what pain.

Appreciation is a matter of balance and of preference. There may be those who prefer their heartbreak in smaller doses and are not distracted by lengthy descriptive interruptions. If that is you, this is your book.