| Welcome to tuscan
epicure.
This is the internet home
to Etruscan Places' one week food tour and cooking workshop in Tuscany,
Italy. This culinary tour is held only once yearly, to coincide
with the local San Giovanni d'Asso festival of the white truffle .
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| Maddine
Insalaco and Joe Vinson of Etruscan Places are pleased to offer a
private Italian food tour and cooking workshop of
Tuscany’s Montalcino, Val D’Orcia area in the
province
of Siena
during November 8 - 15 of 2009. Our last food
workshop was a complete success including short courses on olive oil and
truffle connoisseurship.
Here is a wine list from one class for your review.
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November in
Tuscany
is the most important month of the year from a
gastronomic point of view. It
is a time when the efforts of man and nature come to fruition.
The new wine, the “Novello” is uncorked, olives are pressed,
chestnuts drop from the trees, mushrooms proliferate, and, if the summer
rains have fallen at the right time, the white truffle sends its earthy
aroma forth for discovery. Tuscan
cuisine tends to be hearty and the more typical dishes are best enjoyed
in the colder months.
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| It is our
intention to offer the food workshop participants a medley of sensations of the
highest quality through a combined experience of cooking demonstrations
and theme based touring. There
will be six half day trips which will focus on one particular aspect of
local gastronomy which will include but not be limited to: wine tastings
and wineries, olive oil press, pecorino cheese, beef or pork production,
and a white truffle hunt. Three
half day cooking class sessions will be organized by Maddine Insalaco of
Etruscan Places in Buonconvento. Lunches
and dinners will be offered in different locations to provide the widest
range of culinary exposure to participants as possible.
Since the annual truffle festival will be taking place in a
near-by village during that weekend of November we will have our final
dinner at the festival restaurant offering a truffle based fare.
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We
have planned three half days as free sessions during which trips for
more general touring (Pienza, San Quirico D’Orcia,
Siena
, The Abbeys of
St.
Antimo or Monte Oliveto Maggiore, etc.), or
relaxation (the thermal baths and spa of
Bagno Vignone) can be arranged.
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Participants will be lodged
at a beautiful estate of a boutique producer of both Rosso and Brunello
di Montalcino wines. Accommodations
will be in rooms with bath in separate apartments furnished in an
“elegant country” style. The
main villa and apartment annexes, nestled among surrounding gardens and
trees, seem isolated but are in fact very accessible and minutes away
from both Montalcino and Buonconvento. Enrollment is limited to 10
participants.
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Upon
registration participants will receive an information package that will
include a packing list, map and directions for car travel, train
schedules from Florence
and
Rome
to Buonconvento, and hotel recommendations for other
Italian destinations. |
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The only
pre-requisites for this course are love of food and reasonable physical
fitness. The truffle hunt involves 2-3 hours walking and the cooking
classes will be held on the fourth floor of a historic building with no
elevator.
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Maddine
and Joe are artists and have been running landscape painting workshops
in
Italy
since 1995. They divide their life between homes in
New York
and
Tuscany. In the course of this time the food
component of the painting programs have assumed a greater role,
sufficient to justify the introduction of a separate food course.
Maddine was exposed to Italian cuisine at an early age through
her Sicilian grandfather Bernardo Insalaco.
Between the painting courses and a former career as a United
Nations official in Rome she has spent over twenty years in
Italy, long enough to absorb a few of the tricks of
the culinary trade.
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Buon Appetito!
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