Sample Day of the Awaiting Table Italian Cooking Vacation
With numerous Italian and local holidays, food festivals, concerts and seasonal foods available for a limited time, we'd be hard-pressed to describe any particular week as "typical". Still it's only fair to give you an idea of how you will spend your day. If a single event or activity will make or break your experience, please contact us so we can tell you our plans in advance. Still, during your cooking school vacation, you can anticipate something like this:

NB. We write about 'communal cooking', below, for brevity, but it's really more than simply cooking together. Communal cooking combines the elements of guided instruction, a lesson from a local friend, and The Big Chill, where the wine and music flow easily. We will cook together in the converted stables of an 18th century palace in the historic center of Lecce. The kitchen opens directly onto a city garden, where you'll grill fish and octopus, collect all the fresh herbs we need, and dine for hours every night under the fig tree.

10:30 We collect you at your appartamenti and head for morning coffee and pastries or hand-made granitas at Gracious Antonio's shop. He is the sweetest man you'll ever meet. We'll dip into some other shops of local artisans for impromptu talks on various subjects, from local pastry to the local butchering techniques.

11:00 A morning walk though the historic center of Lecce (some say it is the prettiest city in southern Italy, while others insist it is the prettiest in all of Italy) to the public market to meet our vendors.

11:15 Impromptu language lessons among Simone's vegetables or Sandro's meats (making you a more savvy Italian traveler, better able to leave behind the guide and guidebooks, not just on this trip, but on future vacations too).

11:45 We walk home for a fortifying, mid-morning espresso and then begin to make fresh pasta--enough for lunch and dinner. We bring out the long, heavy boards of spruce and make a mound of the flours. We excavate a hole in the middle of the mound, add just the right amount of water, and mix until we achieve the right consistency. We form the pasta into the local shapes, using only our hands and a butter knife (this traditional method has been passed down since before anyone took notice). You experience the soulful life of an artisan, hand-crafting perfect pasta in the Southern Italian tradition. There is only one thing more satisfying than making your own fresh pasta in the south of Italy...

12:30 Communal cooking in the stable. The staff will offer guidance rather than demonstrations.

2:00 Savor a long, leisurely lunch in the garden, shaded by the fig or pomegranate tree. The long, engrossing conversations flow from one topic to another, but sooner or later the talk returns to food. Our international mix of students keeps it interesting.

4:00 Free time (most guests nap) or a field trip (depending on the day and week). Shops open again at five, and some shop, others play chess in the garden or spend some time browsing through our impressive, multilingual library.

6:00 A half-hour of Italian (emphasizing pragmatic, daily usage).

7:00 Wine tasting in a 500-year old cellar or at Michele's, in his hip, outdoor wine bar.

8:00 Communal cooking.

10:00 Dinner, served either in the stable twinkling with the light of a hundred candles, or in the garden or in the Nido. We tend to dress a little nicer, use our City flatware, rather than heirloom Country we set out for lunch. We linger between courses, take our time.

12:00 We break out the drinks or we can take a quiet stroll through Lecce's white-washed streets. Some nights we'll stay in and sample from the bar, where we have a hefty assortment of interesting liqueurs made right at the school. Finally you'll head back to your elegant B and B and awake to four hundred year old aristocratic furniture or a hand-carved stone balcony or to your spouse, who has been rendered a little more 'friendly' after a few impassioned days cooking in the south of Italy.

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