Keeping the Feast: One Couple's Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy

More than food, a memoir about the strenth of family devotion.

Paula Butturini's memoir Keeping the Feast is more than a true story about a couple's enduring love set among a delicious Italian background full of food and flavor; it's a story of hope, and the bond of family, and the anguish of a person helplessly afflicted with depression.

Paula met her second husband John in Italy. They married when she was in her late thirties. Both news correspondents, both with strong Italian-family backgrounds, Paula and John were meant for each other, and their love endured trials many of us cannot fathom. In 1989 Paula was beaten senseless by riot police in Czechoslovakia, just weeks before her and John are to be married. Barely surviving her own trauma, it is only a handful of weeks later when John is shot by a sniper in Romania. Undergoing several surgeries, John barely survives. The couple land back in Italy to recoup, only John suffers a devastating depression that threatens to tear their marriage apart. Paula takes refuge in her Italian markets, diving into her family recipes, the ingredients which held her together as a child as she hopes they can hold her family together now.

Keeping the Feast is marketed as a memoir about the tribulations a couple goes through, and how food kept them together. But I can't help but look beyond the ingrediants, the never-ending succulent lists of Italian market-wares and herbs. Paula's own mother suffered from depression, it was something Paula herself feared her whole life. To have her husband, the love of her life, afflicted by the same disease, was terrifying and my heart goes out to her. Not everyone understands the crippling devastation that is depression, the way it can leach into your life, but Paula did, she saw it first hand and she vowed to never let it bury her. She dealt with her husband's depression, first with silent fear, and then with anger and outrage, and even though he suffered it more than once in their life together, he always recovered, and she was always there.

Keeping The Feast is a heartbreaking, beautiful memoir of the strength of family devotion, tied together by the delicious façade of Italian ruins, and the mouth-watering dishes of Italian food. I thank Paula for sharing her story, and hope we can all be as strong.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Keep on Feasting, A touching story of life

Keep on Feasting is a difficult story, written beautifully.
I wish I could share my life story in the same way; bringing people, places, food and moments alive for people who did not share them with me.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

a beautiful memoir

If you come from a background where delicious food combined with socializing around the table is a way of life, you'll love this book. It has inspired me to start Sunday dinner with my family as I had growing up. This couple went through more in a few years than anyone should in a lifetime. There's food, love, tragedy & history - beautifully written!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Beautiful story

Paula takes a difficult topic and engages the reader to have a better understanding of depression. Growing up in the 50s it seems every family had it's secrets and how we handled them is what makes us who we are today, warts and all.

The food memories are great.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

What A Feast!

It is the best book I have read about a couple dealing with severe depression in a partner. It is served up by Paula Butturini in direct, disarming prose. It provides substantive, satisfying portions of how they worked through their debilitating problems, how the culture and food of Rome Italy contributed to their healing, and, ultimately how their lives were saved by this combination of kitchen and commitment. It is brilliant. I recommend it without reservation and have even given it as a gift.

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