Tuscan Food & Wine
Dates: 6/5/2010 - 6/12/2010
Location: Tuscan Renaissance Center
Instructor: Mark Estee
Price: $2,550 
workshop details |
All the ingredients to continue your love affair with Tuscany
Daily Workshop Sessions:
Mark Estee will lead and instruct this course which will focus on the best of what Tuscany has to offer: local, fresh, seasonal ingredients. Tuscan cuisine is simple and flavorful with great attention to combining ingredients that will compliment and enhance each other making every dish a marriage of flavors.
Here are some highlights of the class:
- Shopping for fresh ingredients at local outdoor markets and supermarkets, or even in our own back yard. There are many herbs and vegetables that grow wild in and around the Tuscan hills, plus a variety of local produce: asparagus, artichokes, tomatoes and other fresh fruits and vegetables in season at that time.
- We will take excursions to nearby hill towns in search of the best prosciutto, salumi, olive oil, and peccorino.
- We will learn how to tell the quality and freshness of these products and how best to use them in our cooking.
- And the Chianti flows from the faucets.
Mark will lead 4 hands-on cooking classes in San Fedele`s professional kitchen. The classes will include making fresh pasta, bread, a staple of Tuscan cuisine, foccacia, dolci (sweets) and even go wild with rabbit, cingiale (wild boar) and many other Tuscan specialties.
The only requirement for this program is that you come with the desire to experience Tuscany and all of its flavors.
Exploring the Heart of Tuscany:
Beyond the walls of the San Fedele monastery lies the wonderful land of Tuscany. Tuscany is a concept as well as an area in the heart of Italy. Here are some things we have selected to allow a deeper exploration into what gives Tuscany its extraordinary appeal. The following activities and excursions will be available to all participants:
- Excursion to medieval Siena with its famous Duomo, hidden frescoes in the crypt, and enormous Italian wine enoteca
- Visit to Castellina in Chianti or other nearby hilltowns to learn about their Etruscan past, wine history and local food specialties
- Tour of 2 classic yet different small Chianti wineries
- Visit to local food purveyors, farms or factories
- Morning hiking series through the Tuscan countryside: vineyards, olive groves, surrounding hamlets, estates and hilltowns.
Price: $2,550 p/p
Supplements: $550 for single room; $150 p/p for suite, if available
Includes:
- Shared double room in restored monastery
- 4 hands-on cooking classes
- All meals and wine
- Workshop tuition and all ingredients for cooking classes
- Excursion to Siena
- Wine tasting tour of Chianti winery
- Excursions to nearby hilltowns, markets, butchers, cheese farms and other food providers, etc.
- Pick up from Florence train station at 3:30pm on arrival Saturday
- Transfer to bus/train station in Siena on final day
Does Not Include:
- Airfare
- Local bus transportation
- Independent sight-seeing