📖 From Scratch

A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke

May 29, 2025

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Cooking is about surrender.

— Tembi Locke, From Scratch

Love, Loss, and the Recipe for Healing

From Scratch is Tembi Locke’s memoir that is equal parts love story, travelogue, and a recipe for finding your way home after heartbreak.

It all begins on a sun-drenched street in Florence, where Tembi, a young American actress, meets Saro, a charming Sicilian chef. Their instant connection defies distance, language, and even the disapproval of Saro’s traditional family.

But life, like any great meal, is layered. After building a beautiful life together in Los Angeles, adopting their daughter Zoela, and finally reconciling with Saro’s family, everything changes when Saro is diagnosed with cancer. Tembi becomes his caregiver, and after his death, she’s left to navigate the choppy waters of grief—while helping her daughter and herself find a new sense of belonging.​

SMARTEST TAKEAWAYS
How Love and Grief Can Transform Us

1️⃣ Love That Crosses Borders: Tembi and Saro’s story is a celebration of love’s power to bridge cultures, languages, and even continents. Their marriage is proof that the heart doesn’t care about boundaries—it just knows when it’s found home.

2️⃣ Grief as a Second Beginning: After Saro’s death, Tembi returns to Sicily each summer with Zoela. In her mother-in-law’s kitchen, surrounded by the scents of fennel and simmering sauce, she discovers that healing isn’t about forgetting—it’s about weaving loss into the fabric of your life, one meal and memory at a time.

3️⃣ Food as a Love Language: In Sicily, Tembi learns that food is more than sustenance—it’s a way to connect, to remember, and to heal. Every recipe, every shared meal, becomes a step toward wholeness.

INSIGHTFUL EXAMPLE
A Kitchen Full of Hope

Picture Tembi, jet-lagged and heartbroken, standing in her mother-in-law’s tiny Sicilian kitchen. She doesn’t speak much Italian, but the language of food is universal.

As they cook together, peeling vegetables and sharing stories, Tembi realizes that grief, like a good sauce, can’t be rushed. It needs time, patience, and a willingness to surrender to the process. Slowly, the kitchen becomes a place of hope—a reminder that, even after the deepest loss, life can taste sweet again.

BOOK FACTS
From Scratch

  • First Published: April 30, 2019

  • Print length: 352 pages

  • Listening length: 10:17

  • Ratings: 4.5 Amazon, 4.0 Goodreads

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From Scratch — The Limited Series

From Scratch is a Reese’s Book Club pick that was adapted into a limited series on Netflix starring Zoe Saldaña.

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