Cooking School in Tuscany?...yes, please!

Pretty much the clinching factor in my deciding to go on the Italy trip was when I heard that we would be attending a cooking school to learn some authentic Italian recipes.  To be truthful, Italian food is not tops on my list of favourite cuisines - if I have pasta twice a year, that's plenty for me - but I figured by attending a real Italian cooking school, I would learn the recipes and techniques that would change my mind....I wasn't wrong!
 

For this portion of our trip we headed to the medieval village of Colle di val d'Elsa, about an hours drive from Florence.  We checked into our hotel, Palazzo San Lorenzo, and waited to meet Judy Witts Francini, who would be our teacher for the next 3 days.  Judy is a U.S. expat who's lived in Tuscany since 1984 and is married to an Italian .  She runs a cooking school called Divina Cucina and is somewhat of a celebrity chef in Italy and abroad - but without the celebrity chef attitude. Now, when I say "cooking school", I'm not talking a classroom with industrial style appliances...Judy runs her school out of a second floor, 2 room flat in the middle of the village, that works perfectly for its purpose - while the kitchen wasn't huge, it had everything we needed to create the fabulous dishes Judy would show us.  It was like cooking with a favourite aunt or sister...comfortable, casual and fun.  Each day Judy would ask us what we'd like to make...then we would visit the various shops - butcher, baker and market - to purchase the needed supplies for that day's meal.  The great part was we were learning things that we could actually take back to our own kitchens - real recipes for real people - not some fancy, schmancy dishes with ingredients we would never find.  Judy had this wonderful way of keeping all 4 of us girls busy doing different things - with a lot of laughs and "quality control", and before we knew it, we were sitting down, family-style, to enjoy the spoils of that days efforts.

Pappa al Pomodoro - Tomato and Bread Soup

One of our favourite parts of cooking school (besides eating the food!), was the last morning when there was the weekly travelling market that comes to Colle di val d'Elsa.  We met Judy there and she introduced us to all of her favourite vendors - it was obvious she is well-liked and respected by them as we were all given the star treatment!   We had some wonderful cheese-tastings with the Cipriani brothers - we were even invited behind their counter for a photo, and sampled a delicious porchetta sandwich which I'm still salivating over!  Plus, this was our opportunity to pick up some of the items we had been using in Judy's kitchen - nothing like an Italian parmesan grater with it's handy olive-wood box or my new favourite kitchen tool - the mezzaluna :-)

Cheese tasting (and buying!) with the Cipriani Bros.

During our 3 days with Judy we made a myriad of dishes - lasagna, roasted tuscan potatoes, grilled pork belly with fennel pollen, homemade pasta, pumpkin ravioli, pear and gorgonzola pizza, eggplant pizza, pappa al pomodoro, fagioli all'Olio, roast beef, stir-fried peppers, chicken stuffed with mortadella and artichokes, ragu sauce, salsa di pomodoro, fennel and orange salad, and my personal favourite - eggplant parmesan.  For desserts we made Torta di Mele Montagliari - an apple cake with a crepe-like batter, pear and ricotta pie, and Panna Cotta.  Each day we would leave Judy's school stuffed and happy to have learned so much in such a short time!

Pear and Ricotta Pie with a cookie-like crust - yum!!

One of the nice things about our time in Colle di val d'Elsa was its proximity to other medieval villages that we were able to visit during our down time from school.  Judy had arranged a wonderful driver for us - a sweet, little Italian man named Fausto, who didn't speak a word of English, but was happy to communicate through hand signals and lots of nodding!  He took us to San Gimignano one day and Sienna the next...we loved walking around these unique cities and looking in the shops - and of course we had to sample the Gelato everywhere we went - yum!!

Gelato in Sienna - a work of art!

Cooking school was everything I hoped it would be - and more!  I learned that not all Italian food is pasta, and I really could enjoy eating it more than twice per year.  Although we were already scheming about a return visit, all 4 of us girls were so anxious to get home and try out our new skills and recipes on our "guinea pigs"....but not so fast - we still had the spa portion of our trip to look forward to!

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Judy Witts Francini

Divina Cucina, Judy's culinary program in Italy, includes market tours, tastings and programs in both Tuscany or Sicily.  For more information about her, visit her website www.divinacucina.com where you will find recipes, her blog and info. on her classes.  She has also just released a cookbook called Secrets from my Tuscan Kitchen which I can personally say is fabulous!