From Scratch

Love, Loss, and the Language of Food

I’ve always been suspicious of stories that promise to heal through food. Not because I don’t believe in the power of a well-made meal—there’s something undeniable about the way a shared dish can soften grief, bridge cultures, or even mend a frayed relationship—but because it’s such an easy shorthand. Too often, food in fiction becomes a lazy metaphor, a way to signal warmth without actually earning it. From Scratch, Netflix’s eight-episode adaptation of Tembi Locke’s memoir, could have fallen into that trap.

Instead, it turns food into something far more interesting: a language of its own, one that speaks when words fail.

The series follows Amy (Zoe Saldaña), a Black American actress and chef who falls for Lino (Eugenio Mastrandrea), a Sicilian chef, while studying abroad. Their love story unfolds across continents—Los Angeles, where Amy’s career and family ties pull her, and Sicily, where Lino’s roots run deep. The early episodes are drenched in the kind of sun-soaked romance that makes you ache for a plane ticket to Palermo.

There’s a scene in the first episode where Lino teaches Amy how to make pasta from scratch, his hands guiding hers as flour dusts their skin. It’s the kind of moment that could feel cloying in lesser hands, but here, it works because the camera lingers not on the food itself, but on the way their bodies move together—awkward at first, then in sync. The pasta isn’t just pasta; it’s a promise.

What makes From Scratch more than just a travelogue of love and loss is its willingness to sit with the messiness of both. The series doesn’t shy away from the cultural friction between Amy and Lino’s worlds. There’s a quiet tension in the way Amy’s family, particularly her sister Zora (Danielle Deadwyler, who steals every scene she’s in), reacts to Lino’s traditional Sicilian values.

Zora’s skepticism isn’t just about race—though that’s certainly part of it—but about the way Lino’s world seems to demand Amy shrink herself to fit into it. In one painful scene, Amy’s mother (Judith Scott) asks Lino if he’s ever been with a Black woman before, and the question hangs in the air like a challenge. His answer, a simple “No,” is delivered with a sincerity that’s hard to read.