Lunch is served on plates decorated with painted leaves and pictures of an Italian villa: her 'Vietri Bramasole' dinnerware. Mayes' huge readership has translated into a market for more than just books. No place like home: Frances Mayes and husband, Ed, in their kitchen in Italy. Mayes pours me a glass of pale-yellow pinot grigio from their new 'Tuscan Sun Wines' venture, a selection of wines sourced from Italian vineyards. The soufflé is served with asparagus dressed with oil made from olives grown on the grounds of Bramasole.

The Mayes' kitchen is filled with the smell of roasted tomatoes and a spectacular cheese soufflé prepared by Ed, 63, who is a poet and an excellent cook (he co-authored one of Mayes' recent publications, The Tuscan Sun Cookbook). More books about life in Tuscany followed to sate the appetite of readers hungry for a vicarious slice of Italian sunshine, enchanted by Mayes' richly detailed, poetic writing and her focus on the sensual pleasures of gardening, cooking and eating. Diane Lane starred in the Hollywood film version, which was tweaked to incorporate an invented romance with a handsome Italian man. The book she wrote about that experience, Under The Tuscan Sun, was one of a handful of memoirs in the mid-1990s that inaugurated what became a recognisable genre, the story of a middle-aged woman's renewal in a rustic, Mediterranean setting. She spent everything she had - all the money from the divorce from her first husband, Frank - on buying and restoring the house. In 1990, Mayes travelled to Italy with Ed, whom she met through the San Francisco Bay Area poetry scene, and fell in love with a dilapidated villa in Tuscany called 'Bramasole', which translates as 'longing for the sun'.

Merchandise maven: Since finding fame with her book Under the Tuscan Sun in 1996, Frances Mayes has launched a range of 'At Home in Tuscany' furniture.

Frances and ed mayes