Product Description

"All my life, I have dreamed of acquiring a crumbling, shabby-chic house overlooking the sea. In my mind's eye, I have pictured a corner of paradise where friends can gather to swim, relax, debate, eat fresh fruits picked directly from the garden and great steaming plates of food served from an al fresco kitchen and dished up on to a candlelit table the length of a railway sleeper..." When Carol Drinkwater and her partner Michel have the opportunity to buy 10 acres of disused olive farm in Provence, the idea seems absurd. After all, they don't have a lot of money, and they've only been together a little while. THE OLIVE FARM is the story of the highs and lows of purchasing the farm and life in Provence: the local customs and cuisine; the threats of fire and adoption of a menagerie of animals; the potential financial ruin and the thrill of harvesting their own olives - especially when they are discovered to produce the finest extra-virgin olive oil...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44415 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

WAITROSE FOOD ILLUSTRATED (1.4.06)
'This beautifully photographed book is the follow-up to her much-loved Olive Trilogy.'

Review
'These engaging memoirs describe life at Appassionate...Carol guides us through the trails and tribulations of producing olive oil. What comes across is her love affair with a farm and a way of life that is utterly captivating...[an] exquisite collection.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE )

'it beautifully underlines Carol's double love affair with Michel and with Provence.' (LIVING EDGE (1.1.06) )

'This beautifully photographed book is the follow-up to her much-loved Olive Trilogy.' (WAITROSE FOOD ILLUSTRATED (1.4.06) )

GOOD BOOK GUIDE
'These engaging memoirs describe life at Appassionate...Carol guides us through the trails and tribulations of producing olive oil. What comes across is her love affair with a farm and a way of life that is utterly captivating...[an] exquisite collection.'

Customer Reviews

The British Dream
If there is an American Dream then what Carol Drinkwater describes in this book is, for sure, the British Dream. How many of us have been seduced and spirited away to foreign parts with the promise of a new, simple but meaningful life?

This is pure escapism but escapism that so many of us can recognise. Life is slowed down but intensified with detail. The smallest incidents and anecdotes in a strange place can hold worlds of meaning and that's what this book achieves. You slip away into someone else's life and dreams that are so like your own.

There are moments when the prose becomes a little purple and Drinkwater a little too self-obsessed but she moves on fast. She succeeds though in documenting for us the delights of taking something old and discarded and breathing new life into it. That is probably the British Dream, starting again but retrieving something old from the dustbin and making it live again.

A wonderful, uncomplicated read. Perfect for a cold, winter night when summer seems impossible.

Fantastic
Having read the 'trilogy' Olive Farm, Olive Season and Olive Harvest, this book puts your minds images into photographs. Carols writing comes alive with the pictures as you can so clearly relate them to the tales and experiences she has shared with her readers. The book is definately worth the money as the photographs are superb and a credit to her husband. I've just bought her lastest book and can't wait to read it.

The Olive Farm
I picked this book up on the ferry returning from a holiday in France along with the next book in the trilogy,

I am now about 2/3rds through the first book and have loved every bit of it so far Carol is every bit as good a writer as she is an actress she writes with such passion and such a humerous but factual way that you are transported there yourself you are living the dream with them and sharing the ups and downs of such a huge project.
It is one of the best books i have ever read its funny, its sad, its informative, it makes you want to have a better life for yourself and its a great way to unwind the stresses of modern life and drift you off to another world as you sleep.