Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse

For fans of Stanley Tucci and Frances Mayes, Barbara Boyle’s story of leaving her California home to restore an old stone farmhouse in Italy’s Piedmont--only to fall in love with the food and people of her enchanting new town--will delight and inspire.

An updated twist on the classic Under the Tuscan Sun, this is the deeply personal story of how fiftysomething Barbara Boyle leaves her busy and familiar life behind in San Francisco and begins taking apart a 300-year-old stone barn to build a new home--a new life--in the largely undiscovered region of Piedmont, Italy.

Filled with discoveries and pleasures of the stunning places and food she encounters, Pinch Me also details Barbara’s frustrations in adjusting to a new culture, as well as the startling heartbreak of being faced with a breast cancer diagnosis. But even in the midst of this crisis, she and her husband create a home out of the stone ruin they had found, forming deep friendships in their little town and unlocking a new level of joy in life. She shares intimate moments, joyous and bittersweet, as a new wife, stepmom, and a member of a community--and, of course, she shares a few recipes reflecting the gastronomical excellence of the region.

A touching memoir filled with food, friendships, and scenes of Italy, Pinch Me is ultimately a celebration of love, of learning to see the world, as well as oneself, through a different window, and of the powerful joy that comes from building a dream.

Barbara Boyle served for decades as an award-winning global creative director and executive vice president at Saatchi & Saatchi, Grey, and Lowe Advertising, creating commercials, ads, and stories for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Anheuser Busch, among dozens of other worldwide marketers. A lifelong food and wine aficionado, she is a graduate of a professional cooking course at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York. Her fiction has also been published in Flash Fiction, Sky Island Journal, Star 82, and Ariel Chart. Barbara has lived in Paris, Frankfurt, and New York, and now resides in Piemonte, Italy, as well as San Francisco, California.