From Scratch Powerfully Elevates Its International Romance with Striking Authenticity

It’s impossible to be in Italy for the first time and not fall in love with something. The food, the culture, the people—the temptations intensify the more time you spend there, and the passion you see in others slowly starts growing inside you. It’s truly a magical country, and if you’re susceptible to its charm, it will quickly mesmerize you.

So, how could we blame the Texas-born Amy (a vivacious Zoe Saldana at her best) in the romantic miniseries From Scratch for falling hard for everything Italy has to offer? She’s in Florence to study art, to soak up the culture that pours out of every inch of the historical city, which was purposely built to awe travelers with its beauty and make a lasting impression. When she bumps into a Sicilian chef, Lino (Eugenio Mastrandrea), at the corner of the piazza, she has no idea that what she sees is about to become her future, her fate, and her life.

Netflix’s hit tearjerker has no illusions about love. Its true story—based on Tembi Locke’s bestseller memoir—is rooted in authenticity. The constant, everyday challenges Amy and Lino face after falling in love in a fairytale-like scenario are cold, harsh, and very real. The difficulties they need to overcome aren’t carefully calculated plot twists, but genuine personal struggles that elevate the characters to a level where we empathize and fear for them. Once Lino moves to Los Angeles to be with Amy (after maintaining a long-distance relationship for a year and a half), reality strikes the couple like a bolt of lightning.

The cultural differences he faces in L.A. are universal to any immigrant. As a foreigner myself, I felt an immediate connection with Lino as he attempts to navigate this new path in America. It’s hard to restart your life in a place where you know you don’t belong. You have to be willing to change your personality to a certain degree in order to make it. You can’t be the same person you were in your home country, and that inevitably starts messing with your identity. You speak a different language every day, work at jobs that are beneath you (which you’re painfully aware of), and even the fellow countrymen you meet aren’t what you expect them to be. For a while, being an outsider feels like having a social and emotional jetlag that you can’t seem to shake off.

Nevertheless, Lino makes great efforts to stay above water: he works long hours relentlessly as a waiter, he supports Amy’s career ambitions, and whenever he’s got an ounce of free time, he experiments with new recipes and meals that one day may be served at his own restaurant. But, understandably, all this takes a toll on him, and he starts to doubt himself and his decision to move to the States. In any other story, this would be the moment when the seemingly indestructible love the two share begins to falter. But not in From Scratch. Amy recognizes how much her boyfriend struggles, since she knows the feeling intimately (it wasn’t that long ago when she was the outsider). Yet instead of resenting Lino for not being able to adjust to the circumstances, she finds a way to bring him a taste of home and reassure him that his decision was indeed the right one. In a city that has no center, she becomes his.

That’s when we know with a hundred percent certainty that the kind of love they have is boundless and unshakeable. It took me years to learn and fully understand that love and affection can come in many forms that aren’t always the kind you expect or necessarily desire. Lino expresses his emotions through cooking, making food with passion and delicacy, because that’s how he received it from his mother back in Sicily when he was a child. He communicates his feelings through actions. Amy’s love is more vocal and artistic, articulated through conversation, caring, and sharing. She grew up having a close and devoted relationship with her family, where words had real significance and impact.