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Quote by Susan Wiggs

“Rosa discreetly wrapped a paper napkin around her canapé- a dry affair of puff pastry and greasy smoked salmon- and deposited it in a wastebasket. She wasn't discreet enough; Alex noticed. "Too bad about the food." "I bet it cost an arm and a leg, too. Boy, these people would probably kill for a piece of pizza right now." Before any important gathering or holiday, her mother used to work on the food for days. Rosa would stand on a stepstool at the counter beside her, shaping meatballs or cutting dough. In the summer, she and Mamma would wrap paper-thin slices of prosciutto around melon balls and served them on toothpicks. There was nothing wrong with keeping food simple.”

Quote by Susan Wiggs

Work

Summer by the Sea

This book is a poignant tale that unfolds against the backdrop of a picturesque seaside town. It delves into the complexities of human emotions, as characters navigate through the joys and sorrows of life's journey. The narrative weaves a tapestry of personal growth and the enduring power of relationships. more

Author

Susan Wiggs
Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs is an American author born on May 17, 1958. Her works primarily focus on family, love, and community life, and she is beloved by readers for her warm emotional descriptions and profound character portrayals. more

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“Closer to the sun than any of its surroundings, the town glimmered. The spires looked like the tips of a royal crown. Skilled artisans had built wonderful, terraced homes and small flats overlooking gardens and fields under a clear cloudless sky. The air was filled with the aroma of eggplant parmigiana being roasted and fried garlic from pasta aglio e olio. Every pantry had a tall, glass bottle of local olive oil and a cupboard full of sugo jars.”

“I began by preparing my pasta: my deft fingers forming the intricate shapes of rigatoni, ravioli, spiralli, spaghetti, cannelloni, and linguini. Then I would brew sauces of sardines, or anchovies or zucchini or sheep's cheeses, of saffron, pine nuts, currants, and fennel. These I would simmer in the huge iron cauldrons, which were constantly bubbling above the fire. My pasta dishes, I have to say, were famous throughout the province, and the scent of my sauces carried by the breeze was sufficient to fill a poor man's stomach. I also kneaded bread and produced the finest pane rimacinato, the most delicious ciabatta and focaccia that had ever been tasted in the region. Sometimes I would add wild thyme to the dough, or fragrant rosemary; plucked fresh from the hedgerow, with the dew still on the leaves.”

“The pollo alla Messinese, a sumptuous dish of chicken smothered in a tuna-flavored mayonnaise that I produced, would have fed three hundred guests at a wedding. Unfortunately there was to be no wedding. Following the chicken incident, Mama banned me from slaughtering any more animals, so I turned to the dairy instead. I made salty ricotta by boiling sheep's milk with salt and skimming the whey with a bunch of twigs in the old tradition, just as Nonna Fiore had taught me. The ricotta I too made in great quantities, storing it in barrels in the roof of the cowshed.”

“Livia had burnt the onions. And not just any onions, but the ones in her famous sugo alla genovese, that wonderful sauce of reduced onions, flavored with beef stock, celery and chopped parsley, that together with pummarola and ragù form the holy trinity of Neapolitan pasta sauces. To make a true genovese the onions have to be cooked for around five hours over the gentlest heat, stirring occasionally to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan and splashing them with water whenever they look like they are drying out. Onions are remarkable things, for cooked like this they lose almost all their familiar oniony taste and become an intensely sweet, aromatic jam, yet if a single piece happens to burn in the cooking, the acrid taste will permeate the whole dish.”

“Livia could have made a sugo blindfold- she had been making it almost every day for years. The only difficulty was, there were as many different kinds of sugo as there were days in a month. There was the everyday version, which might be no more than a handful of ripe tomatoes squashed with the tip of a knife to release the juices, then quickly fried in oil. There was the classic version, in which the tomatoes were simmered along with some garlic and onions until they had reduced to a thick, pulpy stew. Then there was a richer version, in which pieces of meat were cooked for several hours to extract all the flavor, and so on all the way up to ragù del guardaporte, the gatekeeper's sauce, so called because it required someone to sit by it all day, adding little splashes of water to stop the rolls of meat stuffed with parsley, garlic and cheese from drying out.”