Cookucina: A Recipe for Disaster

Author(s): Stephen Phelps

Location(s): Le Marche

Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs

Era(s): Modern

Location

Content

A RECIPE FOR DISASTER is the entertaining journey of an Englishman struggling with the ups and downs of living in rural Italy. After giving up a successful career in television, Stephen finds himself dragged back into a world he had happily forsaken when his neighbor, Lia, persuades him to listen to her BIG IDEA – making a TV cookery series. But Lia speaks no English. And Stephen’s partner, Tam, can’t cook. So, much against Stephen’s better judgement, the three of them set out to make a six-part cookery series in a medieval town in the rolling hills of the little-known, but spectacularly beautiful, Italian region of Le Marche. In the COOKUCINA TV series Lia teaches Tam to cook alla marchigiana, while Tam translates. A RECIPE FOR DISASTER follows their many encounters with the real Italy – a world away from summer holiday crowds in Tuscany or the Amalfi coast. As the team try to construct a professional series with no funding they come to rely on the generosity of the marchigiana people, while attempting to overcome the constant difficulties thrown up by those whose stubborn adherence to their age-old way of life is rooted in their beloved fields and woods. A RECIPE FOR DISASTER is a goldmine of simple yet delicious recipes, while peeling back the veneer of television professionalism and opening the door to a world of Italian surprise and delight. A RECIPE FOR DISASTER is best read alongside COOKUCINA, the final six-part TV series, so you can see for yourself how the team cracked their problems and (just about) held it all together in a blistering heatwave. Experience this contradictory world of vendettas and kind hearts through the laughter and frustrations of Stephen and the team, as you follow A RECIPE FOR DISASTER slowly coming to its surprising fruition.

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