The true story of the Umbrian Supper Club, four country women who gather in an old stone house in the hills above Italy's Orvieto to cook, eat, drink and talk. Each woman's passions, disappointments and hopes are artfully recounted in this earthy celebration of life's 'small delights'.  

''New wine, new oil, all those chestnuts, fat porcini smelling of loam and the ages, figs dripping honey, the leaves on the vines gone yellow as saffron...''

Evocative and intimate, The Umbrian Supper Club recounts the life stories of a small group of Umbrian women who gather each week in an old stone house in the hills above Orvieto to cook, to eat and to drink. And, equally as important, to talk.

During their meals together, they recount the memories and experiences of their gastronomic lives as well as those of their more personal histories. For a period of four years, it was Marlena de Blasi's task, her pleasure, to cook for the Supper Club. What she learnt, what they cooked and ate and drank and how they talked form the fundamental truths of this book.

A delight to read and to taste, The Umbrian Supper Club includes recipes drawn from these Thursday-night suppers.

'Transports the reader to the tastes and smells within the bare-stoned walls of Orvieto's rusticos.' - Good Reading

'A delight to read.' - Italianicious

About the Author
Marlena de Blasi is the bestselling author of A Thousand Days in Venice, Tuscan Secrets, An Umbrian Love Story, That Summer in Sicily, Antonia and her Daughters and a novel Amandine. She has been a chef, a journalist, a food and wine consultant and a restaurant critic. She is also the author of two internationally published cookbooks of Italian food. She and her husband, Fernando, moved from Venice to San Casciano in Tuscany and now live in Orvieto in the region of Umbria.