Book ~ "Taste: My Life through Food" (20201) Stanley Tucci

From Goodreads ~ Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with "The Devil Wears Prada", "The Hunger Games", and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in "The Tucci Cookbook" and "The Tucci Table", and now he takes us beyond the recipes and into the stories behind them.

Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, New York, preparing for and filming the foodie films "Big Night" and "Julie & Julia", falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.

Written with Stanley's signature wry humour and nostalgia, "Taste" is a heartwarming read that will be irresistible for anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal.

I haven't seen a lot of things that Stanley Tucci has been in but Julie & Julia comes to mind.  I like reading bios/autobios and thought his story would be interesting ... and it was.

The book starts with Tucci's beginnings, the son of Italian immigrants, and what it was like living in the States with Italian traditions and foods.  He headed to New York to become an actor and worked the jobs he had to so he could pay his rent.  He talks about his marriages (his first wife passed away from cancer in 2009) and his children, his travels, the food he has eaten in his travels, his own battle with cancer and more.

I liked the writing style ... it was honest yet amusing at times.  I found it to be conversational, like he was sitting at the kitchen table having a glass of wine or cocktail and chatting.  Interspersed with his life stories are the recipes he was making or experiencing at the time ... it's obvious he love love loves food.  As a head's up, he likes to swear (I had no issue with that).