ALL-INCLUSIVE MEDITERRANEAN COOKING GETAWAY WITH DEBORAH MADISON AND OLIVE OIL EXPERT NANCY HARMON JENKINS

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

Redefine the meaning of getaway: from a Renaissance estate overlooking one of Tuscany's most scenic valleys, experience a one-of-a-kind cultural immersion. Your focus is olive oil and the Mediterranean Diet, and you'll be glad: through tastings, cooking classes, and traditional dinners, you'll explore one of the most widely used and most misunderstood ingredients in the modern (and ancient) kitchen. Writer, historian, and Mediterranean diet authority Nancy Harmon Jenkins leads, this time with her good friend, renowned chef and food writer Deborah Madison, author most recently of Vegetable Literacy -- you cook, and eat, and learn.

See Photos of Food52's October Trip to Villa Campestri

Day 1: Olive Oil Tasting, Reception, and Dinner 
Jump right into Tuscan culture: learn the process of olive oil production from Nancy Harmon Jenkins, taste the results with agronomist Gemma Pasquali, and, with an aperitivo in hand, mosey on to dinner at the Villa's award-winning restaurant, l’Olivaia.

Day 2: Market, Molino, Trattoria Lunch, Cooking Class, and Wine Tasting 
Today, you're Tuscan. Start the day off right with a trip to the farmers' market, molino (grist mill), and a traditional lunch, and then, the cooking begins. Taste traditional ingredients, then prepare classic Tuscan dishes along with Nancy and Villa chef Luigi Incrocci, dishes like risotto or torta di ricotta; before dinner, join renowned wine authority Burton Anderson for a structured wine tasting of Tuscany's finest.

Day 3: Grove Tour, Tasting, and Two Cooking Classes 
Stroll the oliveto (olive groves) with Gemma, peek inside the olive mill, and head to the Oleoteca for another tasting, this time focusing on the typical defects of mass-produced oil. Spend the rest of the day cooking -- first with the olive oil you've just learned about, and then with Tuscan bread, pizza, and home-made pasta al forno, baked in the wood-fired oven.

Day 4: Selvapiana Winery, Mungilli Family Cheese Farm
 Visit the hillside vineyards and estate cellars that produce Tuscany's famed Chianti Rufina. After you taste straight from the barrel, eat a homemade lunch, and make a stop to see how sheep's milk cheese is made. (Don't worry, you'll get to taste-test this too.)

Day 5: Cooking Class with Deborah Madison, Free Afternoon
 What better way to recap everything you've learned than through a cooking class with renowned food writer Deborah Madison, doing her magic with Tuscan vegetables and Tuscan olive oil? Eat lunch, and then it's up to you: stroll through the olives, have an olive oil massage, relax, or make a short trip to Scarperia, not far away, to see the historic Old World knife-making skills of local craftsmen.

Day 6: Olive Harvest, Making Oil and a Mountain-Top Lunch, Final Olive Oil Tasting, Dinner
 Rise and shine – weather permitting, we’ll be out in the fields harvesting olives, then transport them to the frantoio to see how oil is made and taste its incredible freshness. Then you're mountain-bound for a gala lunch with traditional steaks cooked over an open fire, high up in the hills between Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. On our return, we’ll have a last olive oil tasting, then close the night with a light Tuscan feast
celebrating the olive harvest.

Day 7: Departure Day
 Stroll the groves one last time, pack, and don't forget to take home a sample of Villa Campestri's own olive oil to remember the trip by.

See Full 6-day Agenda HERE

About Villa Campestri
 During the Renaissance, Villa Campestri morphed from a 13th century fortress into its current incarnation, a gorgeous manor house whose architecture and grounds have been thoughtfully restored by the Pasquali Family. Surrounded by Moraiolo, Leccino, Frantoio, Pendolino and Correggiolo varieties of olive trees, Villa Campestri has become a center for olive oil education, and the world’s first olive oil resort.

 About Nancy Harmon Jenkins
 A sort of culinary Margaret Mead, Nancy seeks to understand culture from the vantage point of food and cooking. By visiting the world’s markets, restaurants and kitchens, she’s spun her natural curiosity into a career writing and reporting the ways in which we connect over meals. As she likes to say, “…it’s anthropology with the very important difference that you can taste the culture on your tongue and feel it between your hands…”

The Homemade Gin Kit with Complimentary Botanical Spice Refill

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

One batch will fill both of your bottles -- one for you, one for your hostess. (Or two for you, none for your hostess. We won’t tell.)
Let’s put that gin to use, shall we? Here's a great place to start.

Lose the bathtubs and the bootlegging, but none of the street cred. Making your own gin with The Homemade Gin Kit is so simple, you can brew a batch while you drink one of your home-spun cocktails. With a martini in one hand, just mix, pour, and then wait. 36 hours later, you’ll be able to refill your stores. Now use that free hand to raise a glass -- our home kitchens just got even more self-sufficient.

About The Homemade Gin Kit
What you’ll be doing here isn’t technically distilling -- but don’t worry, it isn’t any less impressive. The good people of The Homemade Gin Kit wanted to make it possible for home mixologists to brew, too, minus all of the equipment, and the distilling degree. At least for our first batch, we’re drinking to them.

New! Pillivuyt French Porcelain Molds

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

Cut your confection right in the baking dish -- the non-stick glaze will protect your porcelain from every “tester” slice you’ll make as soon as it comes out of the oven. (Don't worry, we do it too.)

Here’s the thing: when we bake, channeling beautifully stocked, French country kitchens isn’t totally unheard of. It’s the kind of daydream, in our opinion, that makes our breads better, and our souffles puff up just right. Pillivuyt’s porcelain helps to take us there. When we use them, we’re transported -- quite possibly to the rolling hills of Bordeaux, but always to the land of perfect confections. And it’s lovely there, we think you’d like it. Come see for yourself.

About Pillivuyt
While we’re busy perfecting our baking recipes, Pillivuyt is busy perfecting the recipe for what we’ll bake them in. They’ve honed -- and produced -- their award-winning porcelain recipe in the heart of France since 1818. They expertly blend traditional craftsmanship with innovative techniques, and best of all, they make our kitchens more elegant than they’ve ever been.

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ALL-INCLUSIVE MEDITERRANEAN COOKING GETAWAY WITH DEBORAH MADISON AND OLIVE OIL EXPERT NANCY HARMON JENKINS

The Homemade Gin Kit with Complimentary Botanical Spice Refill

New! Pillivuyt French Porcelain Molds