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Ciao amici,
We've had a busy fall so far - a wonderful trip to Campania & Naples, lots of Tuscan cooking classes and another trip to Puglia. We're adding a trip to Puglia (the "heel" of the boot of Italy) next year and also have added a return visit to Napoli next spring. We have Bologna and Emilia-Romagna on tap next fall!
We focus on pasta in this issue as the Napoli area is home to pasta. We enjoyed many dishes of pasta on our Campania tour from fresh tomatoes to mussels and clams to anchovies - delish!
Enjoy the autumn weather and seasonal fruits & vegetables! Buon appetito!
Gina & Mary |
Pasta from Gragnano
What are everyone's two favorite Italian foods??!! I hear you, I hear you shouting "PIZZA AND PASTA!!" We can thank the Napolitani for that, because both pizza and pasta originate in Naples and weren't widely known, eaten or cooked outside of the south until after World War II. American GI's are credited for increasing the awareness of pizza, but pasta is a different story.
Dried pasta has long been a staple of southern Italy but is a fairly new addition to the northern Italian diet. Northern regions like Tuscany, Lombardy and the Veneto have always relied on bread, polenta and rice for their starches, with fresh egg pasta made on Sundays and holidays. As southern Italians moved north to find jobs in factories after WWII and brought their favorite food staple of dried semolina-based pasta with them, it began to be sold and eaten in the homes of northern Italians as well.
Where two generations ago few Italians north of Rome ate dried pasta, now Italians everywhere don't feel complete unless they've had at least one plate of pasta a day.
 | | Handrolled fusilli pasta |
If you truly want to understand pasta, you must go south to the area around the Bay of Naples. Gragnano, along with the neighboring town of Torre Annunziata, has been a pasta-making center since the late 1800's and was designed with pasta in mind. Read more here ... |
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Napoli & Campania Tour
Our inaugural trip to Campania and the city of Naples was a success - we saw, we ate, we drank! Our group was a lot of fun!
 | | Walking Mt Vesuvius Vineyards with Maurizio |
There were many highlights: pizza making, wine tasting on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, visiting a Mozzarella di Buffala farm, eating fresh mozzarella, enjoying fresh seafood!
 | | Pizza Margherita |
We are planning a return visit in June. Sign up - we'll limit our group to 8 people. |
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Gina's Winter Tour Schedule
We are busy planning Gina's winter schedule! She'll be in Louisville in early December, January we've got the Dallas/Ft Worth and Houston markets. This year in January Gina will be teaching classes at the Market Street cooking schools in the DFW area as well as other public and private venues. In February she'll be in Florida (smart!) and Ohio markets before moving onto Kansas City venues in March. During early April we're finally going to get to California! We've got a few cooking schools, wineries and dinners planned. So many of you are wonderful in helping find venues for us - thank you! Please check our website for dates and times on classes. |
