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Published on: 9/10/1999
Last Visited: 10/7/2004
The school's co-director, Faith Willinger, an American who has lived in Florence for the past 25 years and written two books, exudes a love of food-- of Italian food in particular, and of the lore surrounding it-- that transcends all our disparities.In five days, she would introduce us to the artisans, the ingredients, the wines, and the recipes that make Tuscan cooking so unlike anything back home.Dressed that first evening in an oversize yellow fleece jacket, brightly patterned leggings, and red sneakers, Willinger cut a somewhat eccentric figure as we made our way back through the narrow streets to our hotel; her short, graying hair belies her vigor.
Before registering for the program, I had briefly considered enrolling in two other popular courses, one taught by a stately aristocrat, the other by an imperious cookbook author.Both of these instructors, I was warned, would take it for granted that I already knew how to make a béchamel sauce.Willinger, for her part, takes nothing for granted, and she brings to her role as teacher the patience of a saint and the humor of a stand-up comic.Her ability to put people at ease convinced me instantly that I had made the right decision.
COOKING CLASS IS MY IDEA OF "ADVENTURE TRAVEL."
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Willinger calls him "the count from central casting"-- handsome, dressed in the manner of an English country squire, adept at charming the ladies.Countess Lisa, though not as gregarious, is a lesson in seemingly effortless efficiency; the night before our arrival, she had held a dinner for 300.
The house at Capezzana is also the headquarters for a thriving business in which three of the seven Contini Bonacossi children take an active part: Filippo, an agronomist, supervises the production of the olive orchards and vineyards; Beatrice (known as Bea) handles marketing; Benedetta runs tours of the estate and the cellars.Bea's two-year-old daughter, Annalu, already shows signs of an affinity for the family business.Tagging along on a tour of the limonaio, where grapes intended for the manufacture of vin santo (the local dessert wine) are drying on racks, she silenced the visitors: "Shh," she told us, putting a finger to her lips."The grapes are sleeping."
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Willinger estimates the quantities, which we dutifully record in our notebooks.Years of use have worn the numbers off the dials on Patrizio's oven, which for him poses no problem: he can tell the difference between 325 degrees and 350 simply by sticking his hand inside.For us, Willinger specifies the temperatures.
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Anna Tasca Lanza, a celebrated cook who offers her own course at her house in Sicily, came to pay her friend Faith a visit and stayed two days.
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"The nice thing about this dough, though it does require a commitment," Willinger remarks, "is that you don't have to give it orthodonture, you don't have to send it to college."
Willinger's informal disquisitions-- on balsamic vinegar, soppressata, ribollita ("reboiled" soup, made with white beans, vegetables, and bread)-- are often punctuated by priceless one-liners.She pronounces a good Pinot Nero "the kind of wine that makes a perfect substitute for psychotherapy": when you're feeling really bad, she explains, you need something really good.She says of the canned tuna caught seasonally in the Mediterranean, where the fish go to spawn: "These are tuna thinking of sex."France-- to her mind, a misguided, pretentious nation where it's hard to get a good meal-- is contemptuously referred to as "the F country."
It would be difficult to imagine a more entertaining guide to the local attractions.Off we went every day on field trips, with Willinger leading the way: to the macelleria, or butcher shop, in Ferruccia, where we saw how prosciutto is made (while the vegetarians among us waited outside); to the bakery in Prato, where we snacked on a bagful of the scrumptious crumbs that result when long batons of biscotti are cut into slices; to the area's leading producer of liqueur-filled chocolates, in Agliana, where we witnessed the little bottle-shaped molds being filled with vin santo.To say that many of these destinations are off the tourist track does not begin to convey just how inconspicuous they are.In several cases, as Willinger remarked with only a small degree of hyperbole, our arrival doubled the village's population.
Sometimes our objective was a famous local restaurant, where we were introduced to the chef and his specialties.
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