I'm starting to write this on the 12th day of Christmas, when according to legend the three Wise Kings arrived in Bethlehem bearing gifts for the baby Jesus. My gift to you are twelve artisans who have been an indispensable part of my tours and courses almost since they began. They and their families are  dear to me. I rejoice when a baby is born and when a child decides to follow in its parents’ footsteps. I cry when someone is injured and when elderly relations die.

I don’t purport to be a ‘wise king’, but much of the wisdom I attempt to pass on to you, my valued clients, I have thirstily lapped up from these artisans, who possess the wisdom of a life of doing, a variety of wisdom not taught in academic departments. Some of you have told me I’ve changed your life, of which I’m immensely proud. In fact, the credit is due to these artisans to whom I introduce you today, and to the multitude of others who I will try to bring to you in future blogs.

Massimo has been teaching our Advanced Salumi Course Tuscany since it started in 2010. He follows his grandfather and father as a butcher and norcino (butcher who cures pork). His 95-year-old father still works in the shop. Massimo brags that the only thing they've changed over the years is reducing the amount of salt in their sausages and salami. Even the spice mixture is the same. The secret recipe has been mixed and ground for them at the same drogheria (here spices are called drugs) in Carrara for 100 years. Attention to detail is important. He says that only crazy norcini would take the time to clean all the tendons from the shoulder muscles before chopping them to make sausages and salami.

Since he doesn't have any children of his own, I was overjoyed when his niece decided to join the family business five years ago. Since then they've opened a tiny wine bar where we have our tasting lunch after the workshop. Massimo is a great connoisseur of wine, as well as salumi. He also loves to talk about his philosophy and about tradition. I've learned from him about the strong connection between a product and its environment and that it should be mandatory to visit a place in order to taste its characteristic cuisine. He's the reason why you have to come to my artisans' workshops to learn how to make their products.

Vineyards clothe every hill in Tuscany. You can find hundreds of vineyard visits online and book your own. You don't need me to help you. Yet occasionally a vineyard is special because the owner is special, and I feel compelled to take my guests to experience it. Fattoria di Bacchereto is one of those. I felt Rossella's inner strength as soon as I met her. She has a clear vision of how to allow her vines to yield up their best grapes and how to make wine with respect for her grapes. When she started working with her father, he was farming like his neighbours: lots of inputs of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. Rossella had a different idea. She wanted to step back and allow the vines to find their own way to be strong and resilient. For example, she doesn't irrigate or add fertiliser which would encourage the roots to proliferate on the surface. If you don't give them anything, their roots will grow deep and find what they need in the soil. Maybe your yield will be lower, but the expression in your wine of your unique terroir will be stronger. When she took me to the vineyard, I observed her observing the vines as if she were continually trying to understand their personalities, as if they were people she could communicate with.  

In the cellar she has that same perception and understanding of the interactions between the grapes, the must, the natural yeasts, the temperature and the rhythm of winemaking. From Rossella I learn the art of close observation, of allowing the natural world to tell you what goals to set and how to achieve them. We go to Bacchereto on the Tastes & Textiles: Wine to Dye For and the Autumn in Tuscany tours. ​

Francesca has been a friend from even before I started Sapori & Saperi Adventures. She befriended me looking bewildered at an agricultural meeting near her farm just outside Barga. She had abandoned graphic design to buy a run-down farm to try her hand at beekeeping. She renovated the farm buildings to become her house and two apartments and a double bedroom for paying guests. Meanwhile her two donkeys were eating their way through a hillside of brambles to reveal an olive grove which she didn't know she had. Producing olive oil joined the honey and agriturismo (not to mention caring for a young daughter). She has a warm heart and open house. Her friends flock to her place, and I spent many a joyous Christmas and Easter there. And I was with her during her very difficult divorce. I've learned from her how you can be tough while also being warm and hospitable.

Wanting my clients to experience the warmth of Italian hospitality, I took them to learn about bees and mono-floral honey, but especially for pizza parties with her friends, a chance to mix with locals. Now she's a chef. She was at the forefront of a new initiative by Coldiretti, her agricultural association, to teach people with agriturismi how to use their produce more interestingly in their restaurants. The only stand-alone cooking lesson I offer, 'No shopping list, no recipes', is taught by Francesca. If you're looking for an idyllic place to chill out surrounded by exquisite mountain scenery, you can't do better than Francesca's Al Benefizio. (She speaks excellent English but the website is in Italian. Best to phone or send a message on WhatsApp.)

Nadia wasn't one of my original weavers, but a thread links her to those who I began with and have either died or become a nonna, too busy to weave anymore. She seems quiet; even timid; but not a bit of it. She takes new challenges in her stride. In 2000 she took advantage of a free one-year course offered by the comune on traditional Lucchese weaving. It unleashed her creativity, and she continued weaving, figuring out how to get a stand at craft fairs in Florence and Lucca, where I met her in 2019. Her next giant step was to take a permanent shop in Lucca and move her loom in. Despite having to figure out the logistics and bureaucracy and having to meet a monthly rent bill, she's thriving. She can't weave enough of her gorgeous scarves in muted colours to fulfil the passing trade. She taught me that if you have a solid plan and work diligently, you can succeed.

Now we collaborate on a 'Weave your own souvenir' workshop during my Tastes & Textiles: Hanging by a Thread tour. Each participant weaves a square of cloth in a typical Lucchese pattern which she (so far no men) can take home to make into a little bag or glasses or cell phone case.

If you drive along the narrow river valley of the Torrente Pedogna, carefully avoiding the main road to Pescaglia, and turn onto a dirt track just before your road crosses the river, you'll see in front of you an unremarkable stone building. Get out of your car and peer through the door where in the gloom you'll discern a small man crouched over a glowing piece of iron held beneath a hydraulic hammer. This is the blacksmith Carlo Galgani. He's 85 years old, or maybe 86, and has been working in this forge since he learned the craft from his father. The Galgani family have been blacksmiths in this valley for 500 years, as documented in the Lucca archives. The forge is powered entirely by water, channeled off the river up valley. I fit a visit to Carlo into every tour I possibly can: Artisan Bread Course Tuscany and Tastes & Textiles: Hanging by a Thread.

This story brings tears to my eyes. Carlo has three adult children. The sons moved to other parts of Italy, but his daughter stayed in his village and has two sons. As teenagers they helped Carlo during summer holidays, and Nicola decided to continue working with his grandfather. He had learned the necessary skills to make farm implements and household tools, but Carlo worried that he still needed to teach him to repair the antique machinery for which parts are no longer available, not to mention maintaining the water canal and tubing. At this point Nicola came to the sad conclusion that he couldn't earn enough money working with his grandfather. Carlo owns his house and forge outright; he has a Fiat Panda which never wears out; he doesn't want a cell phone and anyway there's no signal at the forge; he cooks his own lunch on the forge fire. Nicola, on the other hand, is a young man and needs money for a house, car, phone, evening out with his friends. Two men working with their hands simply can't produce enough at a price the locals are willing to pay to fund even a modest modern lifestyle.

I keep trying to learn from Carlo the patient fatalism of the many elderly people I know. Sometimes you have to accept that a way of life which has sustained craftspeople for 500 years will die.

In this stall and this rudimentary dairy at the end of a dirt road, Enea Giunti lives quietly off the grid, with his wife Valeria, as a goatherd, cheesemaker, cereal farmer and baker, never deviating from his principles of self-sufficiency. He has been one of the teachers on our Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese course since it began in 2015, but not always. His trust in nature to guide the timing of his activities means sometimes in April, when I run the course, he doesn't have any milk because his goats didn't kid in time. Or it's too cold in his unheated dairy for the lactic coagulation of his French-style goat cheeses. But when we do visit him, he impresses the course participants with the ease with which he makes what is regarded as a difficult category of cheese. Which starter cultures does he use, professional cheesemakers ask. The ones on his skin and in the air in the dairy. They've been his friends for many years, and he doesn't need to import strangers. His favourite times of day are early morning and evening when he goes out to pasture with his goats, never with his cell phone.

I've learned from Enea that if you work with nature instead of against it, you can produce a small quantity of a fine product with less effort. I've tasted a lot of chèvre made by other diaries small and large, and his stands out for its texture and complexity of flavour.

If you want a real-life example of carpe diem, Paolo is it. He makes the Slow Food Presidium Potato Bread of the Garfagnana; he's a farro and potato farmer; he hulls farro for himself and other farmers; and he's a cattle farmer. The first and third of those resulted from crises. His mother was the village baker. She got cancer at an early age, and on her death bed she confessed to Paolo how sad she felt that her bread would no longer be made in her village. How can an Italian boy resist a plea from a mother? Even though he was already a full-time farro and cattle farmer, he promised her he would carry on making her bread according to her recipe, with her sourdough starter and baked in a wood-fired oven. True to his promise, he's still at it. He was instrumental in registering it as a Slow Food Presidium. He now delivers to shops and restaurants down the Serchio River Valley to Lucca and beyond without ever making an effort to sell it to new customers.

Crisis number 2. Farro is a primitive wheat. Unlike modern varieties of wheat, it's not free threshing, which means the grain doesn't come out of its hull without a special process. It used to be done by millers who covered their millstones with cork and squeezed the seeds out of their hulls without damaging the grain, after which the chaff was winnowed from the grain which could then be ground into flour or cooked whole like rice and pearled barley. One night Paolo's miller died of a heart attack. In the next few days while standing in the car park of his village desperately cranking a small stone mill to hull his farro, he realised that rice farmers have the same problem. After a quick phone call to Zanotti, a manufacturer of rice polishing machines, a trip to their factory in Piedmont to test a sack of farro, a small grant and a large bank loan, Paolo was the proud owner of a farro hulling and polishing machine. He notified all the farmers around him that he could now process their farro. Like his bread, knowledge of the service spread by word of mouth. He paid off his loan and now his two sons, who tried university only to discover they were farmers at heart, are now running that part of the business.

I've been taking clients to Paolo since I started Sapori & Saperi Adventures in 2005 and he is, of course, one of the teachers on our Artisan Bread Course Tuscany. I've learned many things from Paolo. He's a model of how to maintain a good life-work balance, while probably never realising that he's doing it. But above all, when you lose a key element in your life, you can view it as an opportunity and go for it.

Daniela and her husband Valter are cattle farmers. They farm on the upper slopes of the Montagna Pistoiese, part of the Apennine mountains. I discovered Daniela several years ago from the wrapper on her butter which I bought down in the valley near Lucca. It was actually a ricotta wrapper, so I knew she made cheese, because you can only make ricotta after you've made cheese. I also figured she was a small cheesemaker; if she had been a big dairy, the butter would have been wrapped in the correct label. I went to meet her and was impressed by her calm demeanour despite the pressures of the animals, the dairy, an agriturismo and a young family.

She started herding sheep when she was 9 years old and was the head cheesemaker on her father's farm by the time she was 12. When she married Valter, she moved to his cattle farm across the Lima Valley and transferred her cheesemaking knowledge to cow's milk. She has a small modern dairy and produces enough cheese, ricotta, yoghurt and butter to send to shops and restaurants as far away as Pistoia and Lucca. She took advantage of courses given by a highly respected cheese consultant from the Alps and modified her cheesemaking processes accordingly. Her range of cheeses are excellent. But what I admire most about her is the ability to mix modernity and tradition. The family still practise transhumance, walking their cows from their winter stable up to summer alpine pastures.  Daniela cuts the curd and ladles it into moulds by hand. She decides by eye rather than a pH meter when it had drained enough and is ready for salting. She is one of the cheesemakers who teaches our Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese.

In 2012 when she was snowed in, a friend from the city made her way to the farm and helped her write her autobiography, entitled Come le Stagioni (Like the Seasons). Her life reminds me that living in the countryside and caring for your family and your animals, whatever the seasons may bring, can fill you with love, purpose and joy.

Marzia still makes cheese in one pot over a burner in the minuscule dairy where she learned from  her mother-in-law. She's the most traditional of my cheesemakers and has been teaching the Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese course since it began in 2014. I imagine that her family, her house, her farm are pretty much the same as small Tuscan farms have been for the last century. The stone house is in one of those picturesque mediaeval mountain-top villages. It has been added to and divided up according to the exigencies of the families living in it. Like the house, the family land has been added to and divided up and is dispersed inside and outside the village. The stalls are below the village, so milk has to be brought up in the jeep. Every member of the family has his or her role whether milking or making cheese, or ploughing and planting potatoes and beans, or tending the bees and extracting honey from the hives, or harvesting chestnuts and carefully drying them for grinding into flour. Roberto, Marzia's husband, travels to farmers' markets to sell their produce. They work hard and they're not rich in financial terms, but they're comfortably off with time to be together, and I sense the richness of the love and respect they feel for each other. The happiness that radiates from Marzia's face comes from being satisfied with what she has and not wishing she could live someone else's life.

The Rocchi’s are the first norcini I met when I started my company and were the inspiration for our Advanced Salumi Course Tuscany. When I first met them in 2005, Gino had just come back to the family business after university and a miserable stint working in a bank. He told me to come early on Tuesday morning, the day when he, his father Severino and his uncle Ubaldo did the week's salumi production. I was fascinated by how the sausages, salami, soppressata and biroldo were made, but what struck me even more was how well they worked as a team. Although they joked and laughed as they worked, each man knew his role and did it without even speaking to the others. Gino disappeared and came back with the natural casings from the cellar. Severino headed to the prep room to get the freshly ground spices. Ubaldo opened the cauldron to check whether the boiling heads were soft enough yet. I suppose after four generations, they had the procedure down pat.

But now everything has changed. In the last four years the natural cellar in which they matured their salumi has become hotter and hotter, first in August, then July and August and now often in June and September and even October. There are now not enough cool months in a year to produce enough salumi to last through the hot months, and nowhere to put the salumi when the cellar is too hot. They had to make a difficult decision. Either abandon the natural cellar which had worked for their ancestors, or close. Gino decided to invest in a temperature- and humidity-controlled cabinet. It took a while to get the hang of it. Before this everything was done by feel and experience; now instead of nature deciding, Gino had to set the temperature and humidity day by day. I worried, what if he guessed wrongly? It was a big investment and they needed to produce enough to pay for it. I also hated the idea of abandoning the traditional method for a new one that requires loads of energy. I'm glad the transition has worked for them. And I've learned from the pragmatism of these artisans that sometimes you have to evolve, and if you don't, you'll go extinct.

 Mirko is the only teacher on our Art & Science of Gelato course. Usually I have at least two and often five different teachers to show you different minds and different hands, but there is no one else who understands gelato and the business of running a gelateria as well as Mirko. Although he's a risk-taker, which takes guts, he's kind and soft-hearted, too, a combination rarely found in the same person. When he lost his logistics job in the 2008 economic crisis, he had to find something else to do. He asked himself what he liked best when he was a child: pizza and gelato! He chose gelato only because it has a longer shelf life. But his idea of gelato was one made with natural ingredients, made with knowledge and an artisan's experience. He took gelato courses and found out how to buy a sack of premix, put it in the batch freezer and push a button. He had to do something more daring to realise his dream of making natural gelato. He bought a camper van, packed up the family and toured Italy in search of the grandfathers of gelato, the ones who had never heard of premix or even scales, who did everything by eye and dipped a finger in the mix to test whether it was correct. To learn this method takes years of apprenticeship, and Mirko didn't have years. He came across a man who had figured out what it was that the grandfathers were testing with their fingers and how to codify it. With a few important tweaks and lots of practice on the job, Mirko has refined this scientific side of gelato and now concentrates on inventing new flavours, the art of gelato, and growing his business.

Many people go through life dissatisfied with their work but have no idea of what they would like to do. Maybe they should look to their childhoods and ask themselves what did they enjoy most before they were railroaded onto the conveyor belt of 'respectable' careers. I've learned that to make a living with a traditional product in the world of today, marketing is nearly as important as the product. One thing I'm not sure about, and I watch, sometimes with dismay and sometimes joy, as Mirko takes another risk. In the back of my mind I wonder whether it's possible to keep expanding and still stick to his principles. I hope I'll find out that it is.

Ismaele has been one of the norcini teaching our Advanced Salumi Course Tuscany since its birth in 2010. No, I lie. Two weeks before that one he informed me that he would be walking the Camino di Santiago de Compostela, but all would be OK with his substitutes. He has never been missing since. Like all skilled craftspeople his materials are one with his body and mind. Breaking down a pig has never looked so elegant and easy. He's not worried about climate change. He has an instinct for suitable natural places to mature his salumi. He's equally at home making bread; restoring the buildings on his agriturismo; cutting wood for hot water, heating and his several wood-fired ovens in his three restaurants; rearing pigs, cattle, sheep, donkeys and hens; cultivating farro and formenton otto file (8-row corn), driving his vintage Fiat 500, making wine and vinegar. He once tried cheesemaking, but decided he didn't have time. He avoids mechanisation. He uses a small electric meat grinder, but his sausage and salami stuffer is hand-cranked. He is kind and tolerant of staff who, of course, can't compare to him. I was distraught when his marriage fell apart and glad that he and his ex-wife have remained together on the farm and in the business. I was overjoyed when his five children came into the business and when he sent me a message about the birth of his first grandchild.

So many things I've learned from Ismaele. One is diversify, diversify if you want to survive in the agricultural sector. Another is to treat your colleagues and clients with kindness and fairness and they will reward you in return. There is no such thing as competition. We're all in this together, and if we all pull in the same direction, we have a chance of arriving at our goals.

What qualities have I discovered that are present in these several artisans?

• First and foremost, each one has a vision, not just of where he or she wants to go, but of correct behaviour toward other people and toward the natural world.
• They seek to get the best from the raw materials to hand.
• They are stubborn. They stick to the truth as they see it.
• They see opportunities even in the midst of despair and are brave enough to seize them.
• In their hearts they are kind and gentle. Other people feel good in their presence.
• They are happy. Not always. There are events in life that will make you grieve. But I discern a deep love of life that is too often missing in others.

I end with the words of Daniela Pagliai:

By Alison Goldberger

When I wanted to learn how to make salami I knew travelling to Italy was the only way to do it, so I booked onto the Advanced Salumi Course in Tuscany with Sapori & Saperi Adventures. The course was incredible, and I learned so much.

I was also so impressed by Erica and her company that I asked her if we could collaborate. I’m a Scottish journalist and organic pig farmer but have lived and worked in Austria since 2015. Now I assist Erica with social media and online marketing. I absolutely love telling people about my time on her course and now I am excited to share with you why I think travelling with a local expert in 2022 (and beyond) can only enhance your holiday experience!

One of the most wonderful experiences I had was to dine in restaurants uncovered by Erica after years of eating and living in Tuscany. You can be guaranteed you’re not just eating in the restaurant all the other tourists found online! We were treated to dinner at Il Vecchio Mulino, where Andrea brought out course after course of exquisite local food. Many of Erica’s courses and tours also include meals in private homes. In Capezzano I was welcomed into Gabriella’s home where I ate the best seafood I’ve ever had. The freshest seafood cooked to perfection and an extremely warm welcome – it was an unforgettable experience.

Do you have a passion for prosciutto like I do? It’s unlikely you can just stroll up to any producer and they’ll tell you how it’s done. But when you travel with a local you certainly can, and they are happy to answer all your questions. When learning all about salumi in Tuscany I visited numerous artisans and gleaned the knowledge they’ve garnered over a lifetime. On these tours you’re also supporting these very small businesses, creating wonderful slow food with a passion you’re unlikely to find in large-scale producers. What’s more, you get to taste their incredible products! 

You want to visit a local organic olive oil producer, or have always wondered how chestnut flour is produced, or perhaps gelato is more your thing? These were all requests during my course and every one was fulfilled! I took home a bag of chestnut flour after seeing how chestnuts are dried and milled. I sampled the best pistachio gelato at Cremeria Opera in Lucca and bought the tastiest new-season olive oil from Claudio Orsi of Alle Camelie. Erica has built up so many contacts across the region and she is happy to help visitors find what they’re looking for.

Erica drove us during our course so she was always on hand to answer questions and give us explanations about what we were seeing as we travelled. It was information born from a passion for Tuscany and gave us a wonderful insight into the history of the region as well as what it’s really like to live there. This is a feature of all tours and courses from Sapori & Saperi. For instance, on the Tastes & Textiles tours participants learn all about Lucca’s rich tradition of producing textiles. Meeting local craftspeople provides a wealth of knowledge you couldn’t get elsewhere!

Another tour that didn't take place due to the coronavirus. Since many of you enjoyed the virtual Celebrating Sardinia tour and the Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese course, I’m going to lead you on a virtual Woad & Wool tour. Arm yourself with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and enjoy the journey.

Since my tours take you far away from the well-trodden tourist routes, a couple of maps will help you get your bearings. 

​You’ve already arrived at Arezzo, a beautiful little town in southeastern Tuscany. I advise arriving a day or two before the tour so you can get to know it. There are many things to enjoy, and I only take you to the ones you probably won't find on your own.

You’re probably a weaver or spinner or dyer, or maybe you’re interested in beautiful handcrafted objects even though you don’t make them yourself. You definitely like eating good natural food made with local ingredients! Right now we’re having lunch at my favourite restaurant in Arezzo, La Tagliatella, where mamma is in the kitchen, a son is a distinguished sangiovese wine sommelier (Chianti is mostly sangiovese grapes) and I’ve never seen another tourist. I introduce you to my dear friend and co-leader Cheryl Alexander of Italian Excursion, and we’re all talking excitedly as we get to know each other.

After lunch we drive east and slightly north, over a mountain pass from Tuscany into the region of  Le Marche. Take a good look at the trees. They were felled and floated down the Tiber River to be used as beams for many of the magnificent churches of Rome. We descend to the Metauro River valley and arrive at Oasi San Benedetto, a 9th-century former Benedictine abbey.

In the abbey dining room, dinner cooked by the inimitable Patrizia Carlo is super-abundant and anything but plain. The first of our stomach-stretching exercises.

As fascinating as her tour is, it’s the women of the local lacemaking club and the men of the Academia del Padlot who win the day. The women are such good and patient teachers that you manage to make a creditable strip of lace even if you’ve never touched a lace bobbin before.

Of equal skill among the pots and pans of the kitchen are the men who cook our lunch in their clubroom over a bar (=pub).

After lunch some of you might opt to go back to the monastery for a virtual rest, but I wouldn’t advise it because our visit to the Roman house in Sant’Angelo in Vado is too interesting to miss. Unfortunately for the inhabitants, but fortunately for us, in the 6th century AD the Ostrogoths totally destroyed the town and it was completely silted over by the Metauro River. The mosaic floors of the Domus del Mito (House of Myth) are so well preserved that you feel as if the Roman family, who lived here toward the end of the 1st century AD, have gone shopping and will be back soon. 

Today is our virtual woad dyeing workshop with Max, one of the highlights of our virtual Woad & Wool tour. We roll out of bed, grab some breakfast and meet Max next door at his Museum of Natural Colours.

He’s depicted in red, but in fact the Montefeltro colours were blue (woad) and gold (reseda or dyer’s weld). I hope this year was a better year for reseda. Since last year was terrible, we used imported annatto instead.

​Max does lots of workshops with children, and besides the dyeing, you find yourself grinding pigments and painting with them.​

In the afternoon we join Patrizia in the kitchen for a lesson preparing food of various colours. 'I just got some local violet potatoes’, she says excitedly. ‘Let’s make gnocchi’. And you do. 

Sad to say, this morning you must leave the virtual Oasi di San Benedetto, but I promise you that the rest of the virtual Woad & Wool tour will be equally entrancing. We drive from the region of Le Marche back over the mountain pass into Umbria. A friend of mine who studies history obsessively explained to me that Le Marche translates as ’The Marches’ which in mediaeval Europe was a border between realms, in this case three: Tuscany, Umbria and Romagna (now part of Emilia-Romagna). We are touring the orchards at the Archeologia Arborea (Arboreal Archaeology) with the inspirational Isabella dalla Ragione.

With her father she started salvaging ancient local fruit varieties, many dating back at least to the 15th century. She studies their representations in paintings and books and has discovered recipes for how they were used. There are so many more interesting facets to Isabella’s life that I can’t tell you everything in this small space. A good reason to come on the real tour in May 2021.

It’s a 10-minute drive into Città di Castello where we have lunch at Trattoria Lea, take a quick look around the town and meet at Tela Umbra a Mano for a private tour of the linen mill and its museum.

​Can you believe, they are still weaving fine linen sheet-width fabric by hand! Two women sitting next to each other at each 19th-century loom.

​In the museum you see antique Perugia towels, the blue decoration dyed with woad. Sorry no photos allowed, so you’ll have to come to see them. And there’s a touching love story and a friendship with Maria Montessori, the founder of Montessori schools. We could easily spend more time in this fascinating city, but it’s getting late and we have a half hour drive to our accommodation at Agriturismo Terra di Michelangelo.

Last night our virtual Woad & Wool tour took us to Agriturismo Terra di Michelangelo. Yes, that most famous Renaissance artist was born only 10 minutes from the farm. I’m not taking you there because on my research trip I decided, although they’ve done their best, a simple house is just a house. Instead we’re going to Anghiari to visit the much more exciting Busatti weaving mill. It’s still in the private ownership of the Busatti family, and the first time I went I was privileged to be shown around by Giovanni Busatti himself, who even took us up to the private guest apartment on top floor.

Today Michelangelo Formica, head of sales, leads us into the bowels of the building where the 19th-century jacquard looms are clanking away.

Michelangelo shares my philosophy about the value of quality. When he’s at an international textile fair, if he’s approached by a buyer asking for his lowest price, Michelangelo replies, ‘I’m not the right supplier for you’.

At the end of the tour, you can’t resist buying some of their luscious linens. It’s worth checking the scrap room where you’ll find real bargains.

Until you come on the tour in May 2021, you can shop online at here. If any restauranteurs are reading this, Busatti will work with you to create unique table linens for your restaurant. Sorry if this sounds like an advertorial, but I love the people and the establishment. 

Depending on how long you spend shopping at Busatti (last year Jenny bought fabric for a huge table cloth), you have free time to explore Anghiari and have lunch. I have two favourites. Last year I went to Talozzi Bistro, so today I’m going to the Cantina del Granduca (the Cellar of the Grand Duke). It sounds posh, but don’t forget it’s his cellar where a mother and son preside. You can even get a good salad, which by now you’re really craving.

This absorbing video gives you an excellent foundation for our visit. After the museum, some of you visit the Aboca Museum of medicinal herbs and others wander through the town. I’m going to the duomo to revisit a painting that makes me laugh. 

Now we return to our agriturismo to learn how to make the classic Tuscan cantuccini (you probably call them biscotti), which are so good after dinner dunked in vin santo (Tuscan dessert wine).

​But first a relaxing aperitivo on the terrace. Gabriele serves us the salumi (prosciutto, salami, etc) he makes from his heritage Cinta Senese pigs.

Today the virtual Woad & Wool tour heads north into the Casentino. Never heard of it? You’ll know it well by the end of the tour. It’s only an hour’s drive through rolling hills to the mediaeval fortified town of Poppi where we meet Luca Bellugi at the workshop of his late aunt Elisa. She was an accomplished weaver and fashion designer, but is most famous for having woven a blanket for the Pope and curtains for Jacquie Kennedy.

It’s lunch time, and I hope by now you have complete trust in me. If not, your heart will sink as we drive onto the forecourt of an Esso station. We enter the small marquee at the side and there before us, as if by magic, is an elegant dining table. Course after elegant course of local food paired with local wines arrive in the hands of the three Marzi brothers and their nephew Francesco.

After our virtual gourmet lunch at the Esso station, we’re happy to reach the Castello di Porciano above Stia where we’ll stay until the end of the virtual tour on Monday.

​Now we’re dining at the water mill Mulin di Bucchio, very near the source of the Arno River, the one that flows under the Ponte Vecchio at Florence and down to the sea at Pisa. You can see its strange route here from top right (near where we’re sitting) running south and hanging a U to go back north to Florence.

​I don’t know why, but water mills fascinate me. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of the machinery (even I understand how it functions) and the energetic efficiency.

​Naturally flour is the protagonist of the meal.

Everyone who wants a virtual morning walk in the sun down the hill from the castle to Stia should leave now. Those going with the driver can relax for another 15 minutes. We arrive at the Museo dell'Arte della Lana (Museum of the Art of Wool) for our tour and weaving workshop with Angela Giordano. The museum is in a woollen mill, a beautiful example of 19th-century industrial architecture.

I first heard about the museum when I received an invitation to a temporary fashion exhibition there.

​It’s only a 5-minute walk to our restaurant on the old main street of Stia. On our way we step into Pieve Santa Maria Assunta. When you’re in a romanesque church, always look up. The capitals of the columns often depict strange pagan creatures.

​Filetto restaurant next door presents a short menu of typical Casentino dishes. I’m having acquacotta. It means ‘cooked water’, but is in fact yet another Tuscan dish for using up stale bread. You stew onion, celery and tomatoes in vegetable broth, and at the end of the cooking poach one egg per person right in the pot.

After lunch we finish our workshop with Angela, before going next door to Tessilnova. where owner Claudio Grisolini is expecting us. It was his father who popularised panno casentino culminating in Audrey Hepburn wearing a coat made of it in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.

​Claudio takes us behind the scenes to a vaulted room which was part of a woad processing mill.

It’s been a full day. Time to relax with an aperitivo and dine at Osteria Toscana Twist—local Tuscan ingredients prepared with a modern twist.

Virtual yesterday was dedicated to weaving and textiles. Virtual today it’s food. We’re off to visit cheesemaker Lorenzo Cipriani and his pasta wizard mother Miranda. Picture yourself travelling along winding mountain roads and then a dirt track to their sheep farm at the end in the Casentino Forest National Park. It’s a beautiful day, and Lorenzo decides to make cheese outside. In the photo below he’s taking curd from the pot to make raviggiolo. You probably haven’t heard of it, partly because it’s only made in a few places in Tuscany, but mainly because you have to eat it very fresh, within two or three days. Way too short a shelf life for supermarkets! We  have it as antipasto for lunch drizzled with Lorenzo’s olive oil.

Next out of the cheese pot is pecorino. Lorenzo cuts the curd to allow the whey to come out, then gathers the curd with his hands, lifts it from the whey and puts it in moulds to drain and eventually to age.

​In the kitchen we gather around Miranda to watch her make tortelli di patate (potato ravioli), a speciality of the Casentino. We don’t make them in my part of Tuscany. To you they might sound like carbohydrate stuffed with carbohydrate, but they’re wonderfully light and flavoursome served with sage butter and grated pecorino.

​You have a free afternoon on the virtual Woad & Wool tour. Maybe you walk on one of the many paths around the castle or maybe you write emails to family and friends or maybe you relax in the sun.

I’m so excited about today’s activities on the virtual Woad & Wool tour. I’m taking you to the Osteria da la Franca at Corezzo for a hands-on lesson making the tortello alla lastra and then to the herbal pharmacy and hermitage of the Benedictine Monastery of Camaldoli. Tortello and raviolo are members of the same family: little stuffed pasta pillows (if they end in ‘i’, they’re plural). What you call them depends on where you are and what they’re stuffed with. The tortello of Corezzo is stuffed with potato, similar to the tortello Miranda made for us, but they’re not cooked in boiling water. Instead they’re cooked on a lastra, a slab or sheet or plate, in this case of stone which is heated over an open fire, like a griddle.

Owners Daiana and Mattia (and their three young children) welcome us and introduce us to their cook Loredana. ​​She’s a patient teacher and you’re excellent students.

Don’t eat too many! Loredana and Mattia have prepared a big lunch for us.

As we drive along the mountain road to Camaldoli, are you thinking, ‘Why another Benedictine monastery? We’ve already stayed in one.’ Camaldoli is different. There is still a community of monks and hermits living here. The setting is extraordinary. Not bare and rocky like the nearby and better known Sanctuary La Verna where St Francis is said to have got the stigmata. Here the mountains are lush and wooded, because for centuries the monks planted 4–5,000 fir trees every year, helping prevent global warming before it became critical. We visit the herbal pharmacy at the monastery. The museum is full of fascinating instruments: stills for distilling essences and huge ceramic storage jars.

​I would have liked to have walked up to the hermitage, but since it’s raining lightly, we drive. We glimpse the hermits’ simple houses through a gate.

But it isn’t all austerity, as testified by the interior of the chapel.

​We take a different route down and pass a clearing full of Eremurus bulbs glowing like candelabras in the misty air.

It’s the last day of the virtual Woad & Wool tour and time to leave the castle where Federica, Martha’s righthand woman, has looked after us so well. Don’t be too sad. There’s one more adventure awaiting you at Arezzo. We have a virtual visit to a painting restoration studio. It was recommended to me by the woman who also told me about the wool museum at Stia. Before my first visit in 2017 I had no idea of how you restore ancient paintings. The work is detailed and painstaking, but also exciting. I’ve visited three times and the women, who call themselves Art Angels, have always been working on a polyptych of 13th-century wooden panels painted by Pietro Lorenzetti, the older but less famous brother of Ambrogio, whose 'Allegory of Good and Bad Government' you might have seen in Siena. Marzia shows you the techniques they use to uncover the original painting. 

The good news is that they finally finished! The opening was scheduled for 17 April, but had to be postponed due to Covid-19. I wonder what they’ll be working on next year.

If I’ve whetted your appetite for Tastes & Textiles tours, head on over to my Tastes & Textiles web page to find out more. You’ll find dates for tours in 2020 and 2021. 

There are still places on the Wine to Dye For tour starting on 15 September 2020. If you’re interested, let me know. I’m not requiring a deposit until we’re all more certain about the possibilities for travel this year. 

This is a true story about how cheese, history and a mountain village are inextricably entwined. It’s a long story because it goes back to Roman times. It has taken me 12 years even to begin to understand it.
You probably know that pecorino is an Italian cheese made from sheep’s milk, derived from the word for sheep: pecora. On the contrary, it’s the rare person outside Italy who knows that transhumance refers to the seasonal rotation of flocks and herds between different pastures. Even more obscure is the connection between transhumance and Saint Michael Archangel.
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On 18 June a group of about 15 hikers, including me, stand expectantly in front of the church in the mountain village of Raggiolo, one of ‘The most beautiful towns in Italy’ (http://borghipiubelliditalia.it/project/raggiolo/).

As we explain during our cheese course, in Italy where it was born, ricotta is NOT cheese. That’s official. It’s a dairy product. The casein proteins and much of the fat in the milk go into the cheese. The main protein left in the whey is albumin. The protein in egg white is also albumin. When you cook egg white, it solidifies, and that’s what happens to the albumin in whey when it gets to about 90˚C (194˚F).
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With two large pots of whey to heat, this is going to take a little while. We suddenly realise we’re starving, and wander off to find some lunch. The courses are ready in random order stretched out over three hours. Actually, most Tuscan Sunday lunches last this long. What I take to be antipasto consists of panini of prosciutto and salami with two wedges of pecorino on the side, all excellent. The pecorino has been supplied by Modesto Giovannuzzi. He tells me the sheep are at Castel Focognano (near Bibbiena), but doesn’t volunteer who made the cheese.

I buy a wheel for the pecorino tournament at the end of our cheese course.
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I check in with the ricotta. It hasn’t begun forming yet, but Angelo is adding some milk to the pot. I object that traditional ricotta shouldn’t have milk added. He agrees. He’s doing it to increase the yield for the big crowd today. He adds quietly,’The ricotta is much finer and smoother with nothing added to the whey.’ He moves over to salt the upper side of the pecorino.

As we descend Paolo has an answer to every question I can throw at him and more. He tells me about how they preserved the chestnut flour by packing it into chestnut-wood chests to exclude the air. It was so tightly packed that you could cut it into blocks with a knife to take out the amount you needed. By summer it was a bit tired. To refresh it, they put it in a wood-fired oven until it turned dark brown and had an entirely different flavour. The conversation wanders to art history, politics, the problem of depopulation of rural villages like theirs and mine. Most people in the group have something to contribute. They own their history in a way I’ve never encountered outside Italy. Thank you Raggiolo for a thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating day.
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You can learn about Tuscan cheese and experience for yourself our cheesemakers’ strong sense of their history on our Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese course: https://www.sapori-e-saperi.com/theory--practice-of-italian-cheese.html

I’ve tasted and written a lot about olive oil, but this idea had completely escaped me until I met Elisabetta Sebastio last year. She’s a professional olive oil taster both for Italian Chambers of Commerce and international olive oil competitions. We ran our first full-day olive oil class during my Autumn in Tuscany tour in November. It was a revelation for all of us.
Learn more on the Slow Travel Tours website: http://slowtraveltours.com/blog/olive-juice/

The southwestern corner of Sardinia is called Sulcis. The word derives from the Carthaginian city of Solki. This is just one tiny example of the cultural palimpsest that makes up present-day Sardinia. Before the Carthaginians when the Phoenicians began visiting Sardinia in around 900 BCE, they encountered people of the Nuragic civilisation, which originated in about 1800 BCE. The ruins of their gigantic stone towers and settlements still dot the countryside; 7000 of them remain. Hard on the heels of the Carthaginians, the Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Spaniards, Pisans, Genovese and Piemontese all demanded their turns on the island. It’s no wonder that coming from Italy you feel as if you’ve arrived in a foreign country

But it wasn’t the distant past that drew me to Sardinia. Some of the women coming on my September ‘Tastes & Textiles’ tour wanted to visit a woman who weaves with the fibres of the beard of a giant Mediterranean mollusc, and they asked me to take them. Barely credible, I thought, but her workshop had a website which placed it in the town of Sant’Antioco, on the Island of Sant’Antioco in the territory of Sulcis. Here was the ideal excuse to visit Sardinia, which I knew only from its pecorino sardo cheese and Vermentino wine…

Read about how my adventure in Sardinia led to a new exciting tour:
http://slowtraveltours.com/blog/celebrating-sardinia/

Find out more about the tour at: Celebrating Sardinia (click on the tabs below the introduction to see all the details)

A guest blog by Bob Schroeder
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Bob, his brother Dick and their friend Cullen Case came on my Advanced Salumi Course. They wanted to make the most of their visit and signed up for a truffle hunt on the Tuesday afternoon after the extension workshop. Bob gave me permission to republish his enthusiastic report to his family and friends back in the States.

January 20, 2015
We went truffle hunting today. Lots of fun. Our guide actually trains dogs. He took Guy Fieri of Food Network fame on a hunt.

I first went to visit Daniela Pagliai at her organic farm I Taufi early last June. I had learned about it from the address on the wrapping of some exceptional butter I’d come across at a gastronomia in Ponte a Moriano near Lucca. The wrapping claimed the contents were ricotta, so I assumed Daniela also made cheese, and I warmed to a person who wasn’t uptight about precision labelling. (Not that ricotta is cheese, but you have to make cheese first and then use the whey to make ricotta.)
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The address of the farm was Melo. I didn’t know Melo, but I’d been to the picture postcard town of Cutigliano from which you ascend the Pistoiese slopes of the Apennines, it seems like forever, to get to Melo.

On a shelf I noticed a slim book entitled Come le Stagioni: Daniela Pagliai (Like the Seasons), a biography of her written by a friend from Pistoia in the form of an interview. I bought a copy and learned she was practically born making cheese. During school holidays she and her dog herded her father’s sheep. By the time she was 14 she was in charge of the pigs and all the phases of cheesemaking on the family farm. At 16 she married Valter and discovered that his contribution to the marital economy was a herd of milk cows. She moved to her in-law’s farm and transferred her cheesemaking skills to cow’s milk. After five years she and Valter realised their dream of buying their own farm and becoming organic.

In the book she sums up her philosophy of life:

‘I think there are many types of “love” all led by the heart. Without its beating, there can be no beginning. I’m not talking only of the beating that pumps blood through our veins, but also the beating for our children, our parents, our house, our land, our work, which are all united in one thing: love.

​‘How can I explain to you how much I love my life and my work? How can I make you understand what I feel for my children and my husband? For nothing else in the world and no other life in the world would I change my own life and these loves.

‘For me life is like the seasons: moments of joy are like the flowers and perfumes of spring and like the ripening of its fruit and the embrace of the hot summer sun. Moments of melancholy are like the autumn with its rain, which sometimes also streams from my eyes, and like the winter, because you have to move with the rhythm of the snow, delicately placing your feet like the large snowflakes descending joyously from the sky, sprinkling the roof and our valley, and walking, walking lightly, toward a new spring.’
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There was still snow on the ground when I took Giancarlo Russo to visit Daniela in preparation for our new cheese course.

For more information about the Theory and Practice of Italian Cheese course: http://www.sapori-e-saperi.com/courses_with_artisan/theory-practice-of-italian-cheese/
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My thanks to Kirby Piazza for his photographs of Daniela and the farm.
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