The Bad Student

Picture me in the back row, hunched down at my desk so the teacher won’t call on me. Yeah, that’s me—the one who didn’t finish the reading assignment.

But don’t blame it on the book, Vino Italiano. I’ve actually had this one for a few years, bought to prepare for training wait staff at the Italian restaurant where I worked during college and then again before I made the move to California. To save money, I bought it used and found it quite amusing to see “No longer property of the Salt Lake City Public Library” printed on the back cover, thinking perhaps religious reasons had the book sitting on the shelf gathering dust. But the tome has not gathered dust on my shelf.  I use it to look up tidbits or get information about the often confusing Italian classification: sometimes by region, sometimes by grape, other times whimiscal made-up names. 

It’s not that this book cannot be read straight through.  The style is engaging and comes complete with a story to get you in the mood for the following region and wine suggestions and recipes at the end.

However, even with extra time, I couldn’t just pick it up and read.  Mainly, life got in the way: BK moving in last month, my researching and teaching three different wine classes,  and the ’slight changes’ going on at work these days. Excuses aside, I’m a naughty blogger. At least I’m not the only one, as I was relieved to see jill from domaine 547 admit on Twitter that she didn’t finish either.

So you’ll have to go over to our host–David McDuff– and check out his thorough review or that of the other good bloggers out there, such as the creator of this event, Dr. Debs….