It's vacation planning time, and several people have written recently asking if I know anything about cooking holidays in Italy. To be honest, not much -- never attended one, nor looked into them. The best place to begin is probably with a visit to Margaret Cowan's site to check out her book "Your Guide to 82 Decadent Cooking Holidays in Italy." Quoting here: "My amazing, 284 page book" Your Guide to 82 Decadent Cooking Holidays in Italy" tells you all you ever wanted to know about these holidays. In each listing all the information you need to decide is right there, so you just contact the school. No tracking down all the schools, no faxing or e-mailing back and forth to get all the details you need. I've done all that work for you! You save time, money and frustration."I have a copy of her 1995 edition, and it is quite impressive. In addition to having found out about all these cooking holidays, Margaret runs several, including one to the Barolo & Barbaresco area.

Margaret's site isn't the only place to turn, however. Last year I put a page up on the Go Tuscany site for Peggy Markel, who runs La Cucina al Focolare out of a beautiful villa in Chianti Rufina. When I asked her about other schools she replied"As far as other cooking schools go, I know there are a few out there, for instance in Puglia and Sicilia. Anna Tasca Lanza supposedly runs a very good program in Sicilia. My friend Gisella Isadori is trying to put something together in Puglia different from what Diane Seed is doing. I haven't heard a word about how she is doing. I happen to be excited about my own program in Liguria, called 'The Ligurian School of Poetic Cooking'. It is based in Tellaro, on the coast, in a small inn with seven rooms and a star one Michelin Chef/Owner. It's an intensive 5 day course of being in the kitchen (an incredible one at that) with Angelo Cabani in the morning and the afternoon, with splendid 4 course fish pranzi in the middle."

Judy Witts Francini runs Mangia Firenze, Custom Culinary Adventures Combining Florentine Food, Art and Culture, and writes"my program for next year is Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday in town and Friday and Monday in Chianti, being as Saturday is market day in Greve and Sunday in Panzano, it's a great weekend."

Both Judy and Peggy will be good bets.

Another site to check for cooking programs is InItaly, which has excellent articles on food, wine, and travel, and a section with links to cooking schools (some on the In Italy site and others, like Judy's, elsewhere on the Web).

Finally, you'll find a number of other options on the organized tours and holidays page.

Moving onto other things, Florence's chapter of the Slow Food movement recently organized a vertical tasting of Angelo Gaja's Barbaresco. The basic vintages as opposed to the Crus (San Lorenzo and Sorí Tilden), but a golden opportunity nonetheless. The vintages were 1985 (an historic vintage), 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990 (two more historic vintages; many consider the 89 Gaja's best yet). All of Gaja's Barbareschi are expensive enough ($ 100+) that I have never bought a bottle, so this was my first occasion to try some; I now understand why he was named Vintner of the Year by Decanter. They are extremely good, and if you like fine wines a bottle, especially of the 89 or 90 vintage, will bring perfection to a special occasion.

What made the tasting really interesting is that it offered an opportunity to see how Gaja changed over the years. The 1980s were a period of transition in Italian viticulture, and Gaja was at the forefront of things, introducing new techniques in both vineyard and cellar. One of the most important changes was in the use of wood; though he had already introduced barriques, the small (50 gallon) barrels preferred by the French, in 1985 he still used significant numbers of Botti, the large oaken casks of Italian tradition. By 1990 he had switched over almost entirely to barriques.

The difference is dramatic; the 85 is a deep almandine garnet with a brick orange rim and has an extraordinarily complex bouquet with floral notes, dried roses, green tobacco, vinous warmth and that haunting ethereality that marks a fine Nebbiolo-based wine. On the palate it is warm and full, with an initial alcoholic rush that gives way to good fruit with nice complexity, excellent balance of tannin and fruit, and an extraordinary finish with all sorts of interesting floral notes. The 89, by contrast, is a much deeper ruby red with faint reddish brick highlights on the rim. Though it's true that the wines shift towards brick orange with age, I think that part if not most of the difference in the colors of the two vintages is due to the use of barriques, which tend to fix color and produce deeper, more concentrated hues. The influence of the barriques is also apparent in the bouquet, which is rounder and smoother, with an intriguing mixture of stewed plums, fruit, floral notes, spice and hints of goudron. What's missing, to a certain degree, is the ethereality of the 85. On the palate the wine is quite round and enveloping, with tremendous fruit and equally tremendous tannin -- the two balance beautifully, making for an extraordinarily dynamic experience. The finish is also memorable, with warm cherry and plum complemented by the burr of the tannins. It's a much more powerful wine than the 85, and on the face of things is much more obvious -- there's a tremendous amount immediately apparent. However, as you swirl it in your glass, sniffing the aromas and enjoying sips, you realize the 89 is actually somewhat retiring -- new complexities continue to come forth as the wine opens and evolves. The experience is akin to listening to a Beethoven sonata, where you keep discovering new things interwoven into the melody, and it ends all too soon.

Having said all this, which did I like best? The 89 is more memorable. However, it also represents a remarkable departure in style with respect to the earlier wines. One generally thinks of Barolo as a fist of steel in a velvet glove, i.e. tremendous power with elegant finesse, and of Barbaresco as Barolo's genteel cousin. The 85, which has a great deal of elegant finesse, certainly fits this pattern. The 89, with its greater concentration and power, doesn't -- it could quite easily be a highly refined Barolo. I'm sorry to see the distinction fade, and though I think the 89 is probably better, I miss the ethereality of the 85. Perhaps with time the 89 will gain it.

Winding down, Laura recently wrote: "Greetings, When visiting my relatives in Bergamo I have seen a wonderful little cake that is made to look like polenta with birds. It is sold all over the old town. I brought one back this time to try to figure out how to make it. My friend and I think we have figured out the cake and filling. Do you have a recipe for it? Specifically, we are having a problem with the outside. It appears to have corn meal in it, but the outside layer almost peels off. We are stumped. Any ideas?

Alessandro Pradelli says, in "La Cucina Lombarda,"that Polenta e Osei are a much praised, century-old tradition, and that the recipe is said to have been invented a couple of minutes from the Teatro Doninzetti, in the kitchens of the Pasticceria Balzer, though it may have been the Pasticceria Isacchi at the time. Here's the recipe he gives:

The Base

A Pasta Margherita Cake:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup potato starch (many US supermarkets consider this a Jewish ingredient for some reason)
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 6 eggs, separated
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• Butter for buttering the pan
• Flour for flouring the buttered pan
• Preheat your oven to 370 F (180 C)
• Beat the whites to moderately stiff peaks.

Whip the yolks and the powdered sugar until you obtain a fluffy white mixture. Fold in, a bit at a time, the whipped whites, the starch, the flour, and the butter.

Butter and flour a pan (he doesn't say how big; I would try a 10-inch pan to start with), pour in the batter, and bake it in a preheated oven until done, about 30 minutes.

Mr. Pradelli says it should be served cold, covered with chocolate icing, zabaione, or whatever, or used as a base for preparing other cakes.

For the filling:

Alchermes (a spicy deep red liqueur)

Rum

Apricot Marmalade

For the icing:

1/4 teaspoon yellow food coloring, diluted in 1/4 cup water

1/3 cup sugar

The syrupy clear liqueur of your choice

Cocoa powder

1/2 pound almond paste (pasta di mandorle -- De Agostini's La Mia Cucina suggests you buy it because it's difficult to make, but also says how (you'll have to reduce the recipe in this case):

To make 3 pounds:

• 2/3 pound peeled almonds
• 2 1/4 pounds sugar
• 4 ounces glucose
• A mortar

Put the almonds in a moderately warm oven and let them dry for a few minutes, watching them carefully lest they brown.

Grind the almonds, a few at a time, in a mortar with 1/2 cup of sugar so as to obtain a coarse flour (if you use a blender the almonds will give off oil, which you don't want). Strain the flour into a bowl and return the coarser bits to the mortar to regrind them. Continue until you have ground all the almonds with the sugar. Pour the almond flour into a large bowl and mix 3 ounces of the glucose into it.

Combine the remaining glucose and sugar in a pot and simmer the resulting mixture, stirring gently, until threads form when you pour a spoonful back into the pot. At this point thoroughly mix the syrup into the almonds. Pour the mixture out onto a marble work surface or a large platter and let it cool. The mixture will appear granular. If you have a hand-operated pasta machine moisten the rollers and crank the mixture through it several times to smooth it out. Otherwise, roll it out with a rolling pin so as to obtain as smooth a paste as possible.

Use the extra paste to make cookies, or in other cakes.

Procedure:

Make the pasta margherita batter and bake it in a round pan of the same diameter you want the polenta to have.

Upon removing it from the oven let it cool and slice it horizontally into 2 or three slices (depending upon its thickness). Sprinkle the slices liberally with alkermes and rum, and spread them with apricot jam. It's important that the cake take on the mound-like appearance of polenta turned out on a board.

Put the sugar in a bowl and combine it with the yellow to obtain a yellow wash. Use a little more food coloring to die 3/4 of the almond paste. Roll it out with a rolling pin and lay the sheet over the cake, making sure it follows the contours of the cake, and folding the edges of the sheet under the bottom of the cake. Brush the colored syrup over the cake, and then the clear liqueur (I'm not sure what I would use here -- perhaps something almondy). While the cake is drying, shape the remaining almond paste into 2 or three birds, dust them with cocoa powder, and place them on the polenta. Store in a cool place until serving time.

A printer-friendly version of this recipe.

Thanks for visiting, and have a wonderful day!
Kyle Phillips

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