When Isobel Dusi visited Italy with her Australian husband Lou, little did they imagine that life would change forever. But, utterly besotted with the fragrant warmth & good-natured conviviality of Southern Tuscany, they decided to sell up their lives in the big city & move thousands of miles to follow the dream of a life more in keeping with ancient rhythms & time-honoured traditions of the Mediterranean. After months of searching they settled upon Montalcino, an intriguing hilltop medieval village with a reputation for some of the finest wine in Italy. VANILLA BEANS & BRODO is an account of Isobel`s hard-won acceptance into this tempestuous, warm-hearted & proudly independent community, whose voluble passions for home grown wine & Tuscan cuisine, for football & ancient traditions & festivals, puts paid to the myth that life in rural Tuscany is tranquil. Isobel & Lou are gradually transformed into Isabella & Luigi in this charming account of Tuscan village life that really gets to the beating heart of an Italian community
- its joys, pleasures, anxieties, but above all, its absorbing eccentricities.