The Hills of Tuscany

This book is a true-life adventure of a couple who did what most of us only dream of doing: they gave up the rat race of the big city for a new life in Tuscany.

Candace and Ferenc Mate - she a painter, he a writer - arrive from New York in the late 1980s knowing almost no Italian, and with only four weeks to find a country house to live in. They finally conclude the deal on the hood of a rusting tractor, with the agents speaking Italian and them responding in French, English and Hungarian - a Tower of Babel version of Who's on First.

So begins Ferenc Mate's memoir of their first year in this enchanted place. Living in an ancient farmhouse in the spectacular hills where The English Patient was filmed, he brings to life the real Tuscany: the neighbors, the countryside, country life, the farm family down the road who virtually adopt them and with whom they relive centuries-old traditions - the harvest, grape picking, wine making, mushroom hunting, woodcutting, the holidays, and, of course, the almost never-ending, mouthwatering feasts.