From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of racism and death.

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Sicily becomes a place of healing and belonging for Tembi and Zoela after Saro’s death. How does From Scratch compare to other memoirs about finding home in foreign places, such as Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence or Frances Mayes’s Under the Tuscan Sun? What makes Tembi’s journey to Sicily distinct from typical “self-discovery abroad” narratives?

2. Which aspect of Tembi’s story resonated most powerfully with you? Was it her journey through grief, her relationship with Croce, the role of food in healing, or something else entirely?

3. Tembi structures her memoir by weaving between multiple timelines rather than following a chronological order. How did this approach affect your understanding of her relationship with Saro and your emotional connection to their story?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Throughout the memoir, Saro and later Croce express love primarily through cooking and sharing meals. Do you have someone in your life who shows affection through food? How do you typically express care for the people you love?

2. Tembi describes her grief as something that changes and evolves rather than simply fading over time. How do you think about the process of healing from significant loss? What does moving forward while still honoring someone’s memory look like in your experience?

3. What challenges have you faced when navigating relationships across cultural or family differences? How did Tembi and Saro’s approach to handling Giuseppe and Croce’s initial rejection compare to strategies you’ve used or witnessed?

4. The women of Via Gramsci support each other through a communal approach to grief and hardship. How does your community typically respond when someone experiences loss or crisis? What role do you play in supporting others during difficult times?

5. By the end of her third summer in Sicily, Tembi feels she truly belongs in Aliminusa despite being an outsider. Have you ever found an unexpected sense of home or belonging in a place or community where you initially felt like an outsider?

6. Tembi had to rebuild her life “from scratch” after Saro’s death, learning to be both a single parent and a widow. When have you had to start over or reinvent yourself after a major life change? What helped you through that transition?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Giuseppe and Croce initially reject Tembi because of their prejudices against relationships between people of different races, while Tembi experiences racial profiling in Italian airports. How do these personal experiences reflect broader patterns of discrimination that persist in various societies today?

2. The memoir contrasts different cultural approaches to grief, from the communal Sicilian lament to Tembi’s more individualized American processing. What do these differences reveal about how culture shapes our understanding of loss and healing?

3. Croce’s recipes exist only in her memory, representing generations of unwritten culinary knowledge passed down through families. How important is it to preserve traditional food practices and cultural knowledge? What happens to communities when these traditions are lost or forgotten?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Sicily transforms from simply Saro’s birthplace into a symbol of heritage, belonging, and healing for Tembi and Zoela. How does Tembi’s relationship with the island evolve throughout the memoir? What specific moments mark key shifts in how she views Sicily?

2. Food appears throughout the memoir as more than sustenance, representing love, culture, memory, and connection. Which food-related scenes did you find most powerful in conveying these deeper meanings? How does Tembi use culinary metaphors to describe non-food experiences?

3. Why do you think Tembi chose to alternate between past and present rather than tell her story chronologically? How does this structure mirror the way memory and grief actually work in our daily lives?

4. Tembi evolves significantly from the adventurous college student in Florence to the grief-stricken widow learning to heal in Sicily. What specific experiences or relationships most shape her transformation throughout the memoir?

5. When Croce gives Tembi and Zoela her house, the gesture represents far more than a real estate transaction. How does the house function as a symbol throughout the memoir? What does owning property in Sicily mean to Tembi as a descendant of enslaved people?

6. Tembi frequently uses sensory details, especially smells and tastes, to convey emotional states and memories. How do these vivid descriptions enhance your understanding of her experiences? Which sensory moments stayed with you most clearly?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. Tembi’s memoir ends with family recipes that preserve Saro and Croce’s culinary legacy. If you were to create a recipe that represents an important relationship or memory in your life, what would it be? What ingredients and preparation methods would capture the essence of that connection?

2. Imagine that Zoela, now grown, decides to write her own memoir about growing up between two cultures and losing her father at a young age. What stories from her childhood in Sicily might she tell? How might her perspective on the events in From Scratch differ from her mother’s?

3. Design a memorial garden that would honor both Saro’s memory and the healing journey Tembi describes in her memoir. What plants, features, or symbolic elements would you include? How would the space reflect the themes of love, loss, and cultural connection that define their story?

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