It started as a series of drawings and cooking notes on a trip to Tuscany five years ago. For me Tuscany was and still is, an irrestible combination of practical little family run  restaurants casually serving up Italian sausages and beans next to grand Renaissance churches, of colorful food markets sprawling uninhibitedly across cobbled medieval piazzas, and especially of people, some raucous and crafty, some gentile and reserved, all of them passionately and understandably proud of their region and its food and wine.  LESLIE FORBES

{HISTORY}

Not many cookbook authors can claim to be equally talented artists, travel journalists, and fiction writers too, but in the case of Canadian-born author Leslie Forbes (1953-2016) all this is entirely true.  

There are a lot of joyfully descriptive words that float around in the afterlife of Leslie Forbes... funny, charismatic, intelligent, creative, curious, generous, captivating... but you don't have to do much research on her to figure all that out. You can easily summize much of her lovely personality from her cookbook writing.

Generous with her descriptions of place and taste, Leslie quickly pulls you into the Tuscan kitchen with her debut cookbook, A Taste of Tuscany published in 1985. 

Not only did she illustrate the entire cookbook herself, but she also created the handwritten font, which is her actual handwriting set to each page.

With a traveler’s eye for interesting details, In between recipes are snippets of Tuscan culture and history that encourage a visit with recommended spots to see and restaurants to enjoy. And if you can’t make it to Tuscany in-person, no worries. Leslie will describe the setting and the people in such a colorful way, you’ll feel like you’ve been on your own gorgeous Italian holiday by book’s end. 

In the introduction, Leslie shares that the recipes came from a variety of sources gathered throughout her travels. “Some are the inventions of individuals I met casually, like the dandelion soup made by a Montalcino grandmother or the recipe for hunter’s sauce given by a traveling porchetta vendor in San Gimignano.” Each May be unique in origin story but they all come accompanied by Leslie’s delightful descriptions and stories to keep you engaged and entertained throughout the cooking process. 

Interesting recipes include Sweet Almond Biscuits, Chicken Under a Brick, Chestnut Cake. Spaghetti with Seafood Cooked in a Bag, Stuffed Zucchini, Tomato and Bread Soup, Spring Risotto, Stuffed Chicken, Raviloi Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta, Tuscan Meatballs, Traditional Flat Cake with Grapes, Sage Leaf Rolls, and Beans Cooked Like Small Birds. 

Tragically, Leslie passed away unexpectedly at the age of 63 from a seizure-induced heart attack. Her death was a terrible loss to cooking, art,  and literary communities around the world. But the beauty of a good cookbook is always the wonderful spirit behind it and luckily for us, Leslie's lives on via her recipes, her words and her art.

{SPECIAL FEATURES}

• Published in 1985, First American Edition
• 160 pages
• Illustrated throughout
• Recipes include both the Italian and American names of each dish
• Includes original dust jacket

{CONDITION}

In beautiful vintage condition, this cookbook is very clean and bright inside and out. The dust jacket contains some light staining on the back. The interior pages contain no cooking spots, stains or notations. The spine is tight and all pages are intact. 

{SIZE}

Measures 10.5" inches (length) x 7" inches (width) x .5" inches (thickness) and weighs 1.5 lbs.