Is culinary school an unattainable dream for you? Would learning from a chef in his own kitchen pique your interest? Does the idea of taking two years out of your career to pursue a dream mix fear and glee in your heart? Even if you can not pursue the dream of becoming a master chef you can still live the dream in smaller ways. Many of us have a love for cooking, but the rigors of taking it to the professional level and putting in 12 hour days on your feet are beyond what most of us are capable of.

There is a happy middle ground. The continued growth of agritourism has not slowed significantly, despite the current economic dampers on tourism in general. If you are escaping some Arctic winter temperatures by coming to Tuscany prior to peak season and will be here prior to the ninth of March there is a great event that the cooking enthusiast in all of us can appreciate, “Volterra Arte a Tavola 2009”. As this is the third annual running of the courses it appears as if coming years will offer the same option for the classes.

Basically what is being done is a series of cooking classes are being offered by chefs in their restaurants. So if learning to make pastries, pasta or pizza from an Italian chef in his Tuscan kitchen raises you pulse rate, fly into Pisa this winter (direct flights from JFK are available now) and spend a morning learning to make real Tuscan bread. Most of the classes have morning time slots, roughly 9am to 1pm but also include some other activities afterwards. You arrive at 8:30 and are welcomed with coffee and driven in a group to the location for the day. A little knowledge of Italian is good, although I was told English could be spoken, I would recommend some basic food vocabulary. I recommend email over the website, they appear to have some issues with the website.

DAL: 12 Gennaio 2009

AL: 9 Marzo 2009

INDIRIZZO: Via Fonda, 3

LOCALITA’: Volterra

PROVINCIA: Pisa

TELEFONO: 0588.86165

FAX: 0588.86102

EMAIL: icsvolterra@tiscali.it

SITO WEB: www.comprensivovolterra.it

Yummmmmmmmmmm, I have found a restaurant in the center that is tourist convenient without being tourist oriented. How uncommon is this you may wonder; the proverbial needle in the haystack is as many grains of sand on the beach in comparison. I had actually passed by on numerous occasions and not ventured in strictly because it was so tourist convenient. I was very surprised to be taken there as a destination when we went.

But, my prejudices were unfounded, (insert blush emoticon here) and we had a wonderful meal. The décor was typical Italian trattoria and the space was exceptionally cozy. The staff was friendly and I was amazed at how effortlessly and perfectly the dinner was timed; this is difficult to accomplish when one person eats like a Hoover and the other person eats like a snail. Plus, they happily accommodated time for a “cigarette course” in addition to the other three courses.

The wine selection was fairly extensive and included quite a few SuperTuscans in addition to the typical range of Chiantis and other Italian regional selections. A big plus was also the wine served at cellar temperature. The pasta was absolutely perfect, as were the assorted crostini, even the tomatoes were great, which is not typical in winter. The chicken, sadly, was not perfect, but just slightly overdone, but I believe that had something to do with my snail pace of consumption. The dessert selection was typical, and we both decided on the Vin Santo with biscotti and had a little granite, which was the perfect way to end a great meal.

If you are in the historical center I highly recommend Mamma Mia’s. It is literally a few minutes walking distance from nearly anything, the Uffizi, the Punto Vecchio, Piazza della Republica and Piazza della Signoria and the shopping along Tournabuoni. It is tucked in a little corner of the Piazza del Mercato Nuovo (where you buy trinkets and rub the nose of the wild boar) so it may take just a moment to find, but it is definitely worth it.

Piazza del Mercato Nuovo 18/r

50123 Firenze – Tel. 055 280594

www.mammamiafirenze.it.

Obviously if you are visiting “The Art of Cookery” you are a fan of Italian food, and more specifically, Tuscan food. Moreover, methinks you like to cook and to eat, and want to cook and eat more. So how does one go about separating the wheat from the chafe when it comes to finding the recipes on the internet that are actually worth spending the time to try?

Fortunately or unfortunately there is an overabundance of recipes for Italian food on the internet. How can this be unfortunate? In the same way that an overabundance of anything can be, abundance does not necessarily correspond to quality. When you have a discriminating palate combined with limited time, you want to make the best use of the time you spend in the kitchen. You also don’t want to go to a lot of effort and then be disappointed with the results, especially if you have guests.

While Italy has had its own diaspora and you can find Italians and Italian food in just about every corner of the globe, you can also find poor imitations and renditions of Italian food in just about every corner of the globe. We will make an effort, in addition to having recipes here that are tried and tested, to find other websites that will provide true, authentic and tasty recipes for you to try.

The first suggestion is www.piattitoscani.it. This is a site for a company that sells Italian food online. The recipes are all authentic and those that I tried were GOOD. The Sausage and Beans, similar in flavor combination to the Tuscan Bean Soup, was fabulous and the Roast Pork was great as well. Since it was Vino Novello time we paired the Sausage and Beans with that and stuck with a Chianti Classico for the Roast Pork. The site includes recipes for all of the most standard Tuscan recipes and until you get to the ninth page of the site you don’t see that they are vendors. This, to me, speaks volumes about the recipes; they really appear to be a priority.

It does look as if they are still flushing out the site. So, further cooking, eating, wine pairing and reevaluating will happily need to be done.

This is a classic dish that you can find in virtually every restaurant in the region of Tuscany. It is one of those dishes that generations of mothers and grandmothers have served and has that “stick to the ribs” quality that is especially welcome when the temperature is dipping and the barometric pressure is dropping. A hearty bowl of this soup with fresh crusty bread makes for a very simple, comforting meal.

INGREDIENTS

1 Tbls Olive Oil

1 pound smoked sausage, sliced (pork is best)

1 large onion, chopped

1 cup of fennel, chopped (about 1 whole, probably a little less)

2 cloves of garlic

2 quarts chicken stock

1 1/2 lbs chopped tomatoes

3-4 leaves of sage

1 large can of cannellini beans (19-20 ounces) liquid set aside

Parmesan or Asiago cheese to garnish and, of course, bread glorious bread

DIRECTIONS

In a large sauce pan warm the olive oil and cook the slices of sausage. Add the chopped onion and fennel and cook until softened and slightly clear, approximately 8-10 minutes. Add your garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, chicken stock and fresh sage, bring to a boil and reduce heat. After 15 minutes add the cannellini beans and salt and pepper to taste. Allow the soup to simmer for another 15 minutes and taste again for salt, pepper and possibly a touch more sage.

Serve with warmed crusty bread for dipping.

If it is the season and you are a fan of any type of squash almost all types of squash work well added to this soup. So if a dash of fresh green zucchini or a bright yellow squash is to your liking it will blend well with the other flavors and textures.