Italian lessons

Speaking of my unsatisfied travelling lust, I'm still pretty ticked off that I've never been to Italy or owned a house in Provence. So I tend to avoid books by people who describe those experiences in loving detail. I also get annoyed at the "It's so wonderful in Europe. they take 5 hours for dinner. We suck" conslusions that people inevitably come to. So I'm one of the last book-loving people I know to read Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Even though I recently read her book The Last American Man, which I admired greatly.)

But I enjoyed her descriptions of Italy so much--and her spiritual experiences in India. (I'm still in Indonesia with her now) Which is weird, because the other reason for me not to like this book is that her writing is so good it would usually make me return the book to the library before it was due and go lie down quietly until my jealousy and envy faded enough that I could make it back to the keyboard. She has that gift of putting something so well that it's hilarious, but you don't know why, exactly.

But---her lessons from Italy, where food taught her about pure pleasure, are good ones. Different from the pleasures of food that's too much, too fast, too functional. I'm sure you don't have to go to Italy to learn that ,one way or another.

Has anyone else read it?