DONNA LEON - RECENT NEWS!!

Tuesday, Apr 28 2009: Donna Leon was the featured guest at San Francisco's City Arts and Lectures program. During the 75-minute program, Donna was interviewed and at the end of the program answered many questions asked by the audience. Her answers to two questions, in particular, were newsworthy and are included below:

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Question: One of the things that I enjoy about your books is food and recipes. (applause) This sounds like the third great love of your life.

Donna: Yes. One thing that always interests me when I talk about the books is... Spaniards never comment on the food because, being Mediterranean people, they assume that this is how people live. And Italians would never think to comment on the food because this is how people live. But in Germany, England, America, and to a lesser degree in Austria, people ask, “How is this possible that this is a main responsibility at all?” This is how people live, at least everybody I know eats like this -- at least once a day. There’s a bit of an exageration in the Brunetti family. But Paola has the time. She teaches in an Italian university. She teaches what, three or four hours a week. (laughter) That leaves a lot of time for the pots. And its fun. Italians have an attitude toward cooking. It’s an act of love and an act of creation. There will be and there should be a cookbook. It’s coming out in Germany in November. (see below)  And probably, Grove Atlantic is going to print it next year. But, they haven’t decided. (applause) But, not by me. The recipes will be written in Italian by my friend, Biba-the daughter of Bianca who is the best cook I know. My take on the Italian food mania is on the part of someone who had two Irish grandmothers and a German and a Spanish grandfather. So Italian food to me was a mystery when I went there. I can cook now but only because Biba has been very patient with me. So my uptake gives that sort of cockemania view on Italian food, but the recipes are legit. We ate our way through these recipes last year-believe they are legit.

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Brunetti Cookbook Coming Soon!

German Language Cookbook Publication Date: November 2009		English Title: A Taste of Venice: At Table with Brunetti - Introduction and culinary stories by Donna Leon. (The Engllish Language Cookbook will be published in Spring 2010
		Author BIO Roberta Pianaro, born in 1948, has a jewellery workshop and a much used kitchen. Donna Leon calls Roberta the "Risotto Queen" and often gets to enjoy her cooking. Just as well, for numerous dishes from Roberta’s kitchen are served to the Brunettis as well.

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Question: I am curious about your involvement with the German TV movies.

Donna: There isn’t any involvement. No! The Germans have made sixteen tele-movies. I’ve seen, I think, two of them. I don’t have a television. So it means, I’d have to schlep to someone’s house with my little discs and I’d have to try to translate the German which I don’t speak to Italian.

About three weeks ago my agent, who is my Swiss publisher and they own the copyright, and I went to London and spoke to four different television producers. And the one I liked the most, because she had produced both that old ‘Bleak House’ and the new ‘Little Dorrit.” So it’s probably going to happen with the BBC, but I don’t know anything about it until my agent tells me that they signed the contract. But I sort of think it’s going to happen with the BBC. And they want to do eight and eight and eight. (applause) I don’t want script approval, I don’t want anything, I don’t go to movies so I don’t know who any of the actors are. I just want to be able to make suggestions about the music.