Travel - Mother daughter and Cooking School in Tuscany

Three years ago my daughter and I decided that we wanted some time together and with both of us keen cooks, what better way of reaffirming bonds than in the kitchen. Not just any kitchen - we opted for cooking school in Tuscany. Villa Camporomano Tuscany. The kitchens of Camporomano to be exact and the cooking school Toscana Saporita run by Sandra Lotti . Sandra is known throughout Italy for her cookbooks on Tuscan regional cuisine (Sapore di Maremma, L’Anno Toscano, and Zuppe Toscane). She also co-authored, with her late cousin Anne Bianchi, Dolci Toscani, the definitive compilation of Tuscan dessert recipes. I understand that Anne succumbed to breast cancer and Sandra makes a point of contributing both her time and treasure to that cause in both the US and Italy. A larger than life personality and superb communication skills makes her a lively and informative teacher. Most of the classes are a visiting chef fluent in English, On our trip it was Christopher Covelli out of L'Uva in Provincetown, Cape Cod.

Camporomano is a 70-acre hilltop estate situated in Versilia, an incredibly beautiful corner of Tuscany in the Lucca, which is the westernmost of Tuscany's eleven provinces. The area, known as the Lucchesia is only 50 miles to Florence and 20 miles to Pisa. I came in by train to Pisa and my daughter arrived by air from Paris to Pisa. The school arranges transportation from the airport, train station or your hotel if you are already in Pisa. The week long cooking school includes afternoon outings (ours were lead by a mother daughter team with perfect English, great humor and a seemingly never ending source of local gossip and stories) and we enjoyed Lucca with its maze of inner streets and extraordinary city walls that you simply have to walk; Pietrasanta, lovely old town - I left a significant portion of my wallet with a local jeweler and brought home a necklace that I rarely take off. Close to the famous Carrera marble mines it’s a mecca for sculptors . We watched a 90 year old carver create from an artist supplied miniature a scale version of the original. New to me was that the contemporary marble sculptors/artists do not chip away to create the big work, rather they make a scale tiny model and it's the seasoned artisans who create the masterpieces.

As a working agricultural estate Camporomano is part of the growing Agro Tourism movement and the accommodations, when not leased by the cooking school, are available for vacation rental. The primary product is olive oil from its 10,000 or so olive trees. The olives produce a very fine extra virgin olive oil processed on the premises by one of the few privately owned olive presses in Tuscany. The oil is used by the cooking school and sold on the estate. There is also a limited production of fine wine, reserved for family and friends and for students at the cooking school.

It’s a fairy tale setting and two beautiful villas stand out from the estate's smaller buildings. One , the family's ancestral home and the other houses the Toscana Saporita Cooking School. This particular building wore vivid orange and yellow stripes and I learned that the markings are particular to an estate and in effect a trade mark. Student accommodations are on the top floor of the villa used for the cooking school and are elegant in their simplicity and sparseness. Comfortable beds, good bathrooms and glorious views of the Apuan Alps - from some corners of the estate, those views stretch to the Tirrhenian Sea.



We had a great time just being together and taking in so much that was new to us. I located the school through an ad in Cucina Italiana. I called the US number and information was immediately mailed out, registration was painless. Price is totally inclusive of transportation from Pisa, outings, classes, meals and accommodations. I was hooked on the description of the “Spring Festival classes focus on the wondrous foods that emerge in April and May: wild leeks, new potatoes, spring onions, wild asparagus, succulent shellfish, spring lamb and fresh new cheeses”

To be honest, it was the wild leeks that really drew me in. As a fan of this oft maligned vegetable I was sold on visions of traipsing the countryside and harvesting this bounty. In all fairness, I’m sure that somewhere in the fine print it does say that classes may vary from printed announcement as no doubt it says somewhere that the stated class size of 12 students may also increase! (It did but more on that later). I was disappointed not to see even one wild leek let alone any fresh green vegetables except fennel during our weeks stay.


Classes were heavy on meat preparation and very little use of what I considered to be local fresh produce. I'm not a big carnivore and quite honestly was repulsed by the massive hunks of meat that made up every dinner. meals were not balanced. If it was sea food it was nothing but sea food, pasta - then nothing but pasta. By far the favorite classes involved making multi-colored pastas (octopus ink and beet juice used for coloring) which we formed into ribbons and turned into sublime raviolis; learning the secret of feather light, melt in your mouth gnochi; fantastic little almond tarts and the all out winner and most often re created recipe, a braised fennel (see The Girl Fennel Has Hips). I was also introduced to Faro, a really versatile and tasty grain; not always easy to find in the US but well worth searching for. I was forever turned off octopus when I learned that it is tenderized by being beaten to death in a centrifuge machine! And further made tender when boiled with a handful of wine corks.


Our daily routine consisted of breakfast in the huge room that I think once housed wine casks; then aprons on and classes began. Several of us discovered that a pastoral walk through fields, down the hill and across the road lead to a coffee shop in the village so a morning pilgrimage to that holy grail (the source of good coffee) justified a double helping of the warm bread on the breakfast table.

Essentially we made our own lunch each day in the course of a class; hands on was definitely the style and the staff didn’t hesitate to correct knife skills, pasta rolling or other needed techniques. Following class the staff made a typical Tuscan dinner for the evening meal. We “worked” until 1, ate our well-earned lunch and then had about a 30 minute reprise before climbing into the mini van for our outing of the day. Back to the villa and an hour or so to nap and enjoy the grounds which boasted a swimming pool in a baroque setting and an off limits veggie patch, followed by a hearty, and I want to stress, unmercifully hearty, dinner at which the local wines flowed freely and were usually followed by a tasting - cheese, wine or chocolate (Amedei an fair trade brand chocolate and sublime!) By day four I was craving green, anything green, and on an outing to Pisa headed straight for a small restaurant where I knew I could get a salad.

Our classmates were varied and generally compatible. We had only one man in our class which lead Sandra to open every class with "Ladies and Ben" . 12 of us worked fairly comfortably in the well equipped kitchen but things got more than cozy when for two days a group of four people traveling together became part of our class, then there simply was not enough room. Not their fault at all but misleading in terms of the written literature which stressed small classes.

Looking back on the experience I treasure the time spent doing something we both love (travel and cooking) with my daughter; the setting; Sandra’s enthusiasm and the recipe for fennel that I’ve refined to my own taste and have shared with Connection readers. Of very minimal negatives I count the lack of variety in the dinners; the insertion of extra people into full classes and perhaps the most disappointing, no cookbook! We left with a CD that lacked any glossary or even rudimentary organization - so much so that I have opened it once since my return preferring instead to rely upon some great memories for inspiration when Tuscan food is on my mind.

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Travel- Gorillas in the Mist

"Oh my, oh my..." I couldn't speak, I couldn't get up ! I slid down a rain forest slope, covered in prickers, stinging from encounters with nettles and rolled to an anything but coordinated stop within 5 ft. of a Mountain Gorilla! The guide put his hand on my shoulder and made rumbling, clucking sounds. The gorilla eyed me, eyed the long shoot she was eating, tore off another chunk and continued to graze. We'd found the gorillas!

My dramatic face to face was the result of breaking through the thick tangle of vines and ground cover that we were bushwhacking through, losing my balance and hurtling down the slope. I was in Rwanda with http://www.rwandaecotours.com/ and along with my son, Ben. ( And traveling with an adult kid is another whole story -The Mother and I in Rwanda) We flew from Addis Ababa to Rwanda and were met at the airport in Kigali by Jamada, our eco tour guide and driver. I wrote earlier about the impact of Rwanda and the history of genocide. Ecotourism is a much more upbeat topic.

My daughter-in-law advised going with Rwanda Eco Tours for several reasons, not limited to cost , conservation and the incredible passion the young founder, Edwin Sabuhoro has for his work. Initially trained as a park ranger and guide, Edwin continued his studies in England earning not only a law degree but a masters degree in tourism and conservation. He returned to Rwanda on a mission. Briefly, he determined that conservation and tourism could only be partners if the local people, stuck in poverty, were given a stake in the outcome. Almost singlehanded he's turned a village of gorilla poachers into partners in the conservation effort. 20% of his annual profits are ploughed back into the village by way of potato seeds, training in art and crafts, revival of local customs. To date his efforts have transformed the life of one village; children go to school; crops are sold at a fair price; the villagers work with his organisation to sustain the gorilla population transforming former poachers into trackers, guides and porters; a cultural village has been opened and ground broken for a guest house; a mutually profitable partnership thrives. Check out the website and read this compelling story.

The afternoon before our trek Jamada took us to the cultural village created in partnership with Rwanda Eco Tours and villagers. Fun experience - I got to be a queen guarding the king's hut - I think her primay purpose was to weed out some of the additional wives - and try my hand a grinding sorghum seeds.

Our gorilla day began with a crack of dawn briefing at the headquarters of Parc National des Volcans (PNV) close to the Rwanda/Uganda border. On the way out from Ruhengeri where we had spent the previous night, we picked up a group five Americans, stranded when their Land Rover broke down. Arriving together at PNV we were informed that we were a group and that we would be on a moderate hike in to the forest. Ben, my son, and I disagree on the definition of moderate! It was a hard slog. We drove about 30 bone crushing miles over rock (note, not dirt but rock) roads to Muhuburu , our starting point. Local villagers were available as porters for anyone carrying heavy equipment - camera stuff I guess- . We met our guide Innocenti, and headed through the potato fields for the mountains loved it that the potatoes are called "the Irish". About 40 minutes of hard core marching brought us the "the wall" - literally a dry stone wall and deep ditch that marks the boundary of the forest. We were joined at this stage by two rather fierce looking, automatic weapon toting guards. I never did get a clear story as to why. Responses to my questioning the guides varied from "in case a buffalo attacks" to "we might meet poachers."

For anyone who hasn't bushwhacked through a rain forest , be forewarned - it ain't a stroll in the park! About an hour into the forest our guards made radio contact with the two trackers who had followed our gorilla family from their nesting spot the night before. At this point it was "take your camera, drop your packs and follow me" - with machete's slicing through the undergrowth we were definitely off the trail and 30 minutes of this brought me up close and personal with my first Mountain Gorilla.

It was an awe inspiring hour plus that we spent in very close proximity to a family group of around 14 gorillas lead by Charles, a massive Silverback. All the literature warns you to stay at least 7 metres away from the gorillas - they don't have the same rules! Face to face and close encounters were the norm. Not one sign of aggression, one or two rumbled "get out of my way" warnings and , yes, awesome, is the only word to describe the experience.

We watched juveniles romp in the tree canopy; Charles cock his head and restore order amongst young males and, perhaps in one of the most intimate animal encounters I've ever seen. A mature female was nursing her three week old baby; her eighteen month old swung out of the trees and demanded attention; she simultaneously nursed the baby, patted the toddler and then hugged him. It was profoundly moving, intimate and humbling scene that I was privileged to witness.



Check out Rwanda Eco Tours for details. Be aware that permits to the gorilla habitats are limited and expensive ~$500 but the fees are turned back into conservation work. If you go, I hope you come away with the same respect I did for this amazing animal and sense of privilege for being part of a once in a life-time experience.





End note: we couldn't resist putting a photo of a real gorilla into Anne Perry's column this month!


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