|
www.thejewishweek.com
|
||||||||
|
NY Resources
 |
The Tastes Of Tuscany, Provence
Foodie tour guide Ralph Slone in front of a statue of Gugliemo Marconi, on the grounds of his birthplace in Sasso Marconi, the village where kosher cooking classes are to be held. by Gabe Levenson Be a guest, not a tourist! The American Sephardi Federation, in collaboration with Ralph P. Slone, an expert in Mediterranean cuisine, is sponsoring weeklong stays at historic villas in Tuscany and Provence this spring and autumn. Each stay is centered on daily three-hour kosher cooking classes taught by prominent chefs and supervised, in Provence, by the rabbi of nearby Avignon. Activities also include shopping at local farmers’ markets for the meats, fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices used in the meals — and in sightseeing. In L’Isle, site of one of the sessions, visitors can spend free afternoons strolling leisurely along narrow, cobblestoned streets and on the little bridges that cross the river and several canals, giving this town Moss-covered water wheels, no longer in use, still spin in the river. Once, the wheels were used in the large silk and papermaking industries. Now they are one of many historic and current sites in the town — museums featuring 19th- and 20th-century painters Raoul Dufy and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and churches that date from the Middle Ages. Most importantly, about 300 permanent antique shops and secondhand stores are clustered near the railroad station, and they make L’Isle, especially at holidays, one of Europe’s most popular and largest antique centers, attracting dealers and thousands of potential buyers. Indeed, L’Isle is a wise choice for cooking classes, its charming, historic ambience establishing a perfect background for gourmet food preparation. This Provence town is the site for the final kosher cooking classes of 2008, set for Nov. 5-12. They are held at Villa Domaine de la Fontaine, a charming spot where the students socialize, sleep, cook and dine. The first two in this year’s series of kosher cooking classes, May 12-19 and May 19-26, are held at Locanda dei Cinque, a traditional country hotel — now air-conditioned — in the village of Sasso Marconi, just 20 minutes from Bologna. Sasso (the Italian word for “stone”) is a large rock at the entrance to the village. The village itself is named for Gugliemo Marconi, inventor of the telegraph, who was born there in Villa Griffone, and for whom the medieval village was renamed. At the Locanda, as well as at all the other tour locations, Friday evenings feature Shabbat services and sumptuous Shabbat dinners, often prepared by the students. The menu might well be based on a creation of northern Italian kosher delicacies prepared under the eyes (and nose) of Silvia Maccari, one of the teachers, whose book of kosher recipes includes those she has initiated or prepared for the group. A typical Maccari dinner might well include an “antipasti,” an appetizer such as “insalata di Agrumi” — a citrus salad including peeled oranges and grapefruits, Mesclun greens, onions or shallots, roughly chopped walnuts, extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a hot sauce and (an American acquisition) Worcestershire. The “primi” (first course) might be a Pasta e Cici; the “segundi” (main course) might be Brasato al Vino — a beef dish in red wine with polenta and zucchini; the dessert, Mele Ripiene: apples with amaretto biscuits, amaretto liqueur, red wine, black olives, lemon zest, cloves, vanilla extract and confectioners sugar. Similar menus will be offered in Tuscany at Arti & Hotel, a boutique inn in Florence’s historic district, the former ghetto. The hotel is air-conditioned and has all the amenities of a four-star establishment. Participants stay here, taking their cooking courses in the nearby Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu. While none of the instructors is Jewish, all have been “eager,” Slone told me, to adapt their intrinsic styles to the taste of kosher cuisine. The narrow streets of the area in which the hotel is located are lined with brown-shuttered, three-story houses, unchanged since the Renaissance. At that time, the relatively enlightened Lorenzo il Magnifico protected “his” Jews (like the Jewish bankers who financed his regime) from the expulsion demanded in the vitriolic, anti-Semitic sermons of the Dominican friar, Girolama Savonarola. On its own, of course, Florence is one of the world’s great cities, and the cooking-school students will not have time enough to explore thoroughly either the art of this great metropolis, or even its enormous, domed, Byzantine-style synagogue. But find half a day to see Donatello’s “David” among the many other marvelous sculptures at the famed Uffizi Gallery. Better yet, telephone Giovana Bossi Rosenfeld, a native Florentine and a licensed guide. Her telephone number is available through the Vespa Company, which sponsors her tours of Florence’s unusual places, especially little-known sites of Jewish interest. Go on foot with her, or, if you are agile, climb aboard a Vespa motorcycle. The company number in New York is toll-free: (866) 297-7725. Note that the thousand-seat synagogue (Sephardic) and a Chabad office are at No. 4 Via Farini. Nominally Orthodox, the congregation permits women to sit downstairs in the rear of the main sanctuary on many occasions. On a second floor of the Florence Synagogue is a small museum containing photographs of the onetime ghetto, multicolored Torah covers and the key to the chapel of an association that used to ransom Jews captured in the Mediterranean by Barbary pirates. A large plaque at the museum exit commemorates the 248 congregants who were executed by the Nazis, as well as those Florentine Jews who died in the concentration camps. For more information about the local Jewish community of about 1,000 (including the synagogue, mikveh, elementary school, senior home and theater group), call the synagogue’s community office at 011 39 055 234-6654. The cost for each Sephardi-Slone session is $3,400 per person (double occupancy); an extra $550 for single occupancy (airfare not included.) For further details or to make reservations, call ASF, (212) 294-8301, or e-mail Slone, at incook@earthlink.net. |
  
|
||||||
Print this Page© 2000 - 2008 The Jewish Week, Inc. All rights reserved. Please refer to the legal notice for other important information.