Ciao from Pistoia. Guest post: from Michela Ricciarelli – a professional tour leader who, in addition to working for some of the leading food tours operators in Tuscany, can be hired to help you plan your own holiday or to lead gourmet, art or fashion tours of the area. An authentic medieval town located in […]
Day Trips from Florence
Exploring Tuscany – Town and Country Day Trips from Florence. Why would you want to take a day trip from Florence? There’s a wealth of things to do in Florence, the capital of Tuscany. It’s known as the ‘cradle of the Renaissance’ for good reason. The historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, surrounded […]
Conti di San Bonifacio hotel – Review
A luxury boutique Tuscan wine resort and hotel – Conti di San Bonifacio. Ever since reading Lampedusa’s The Leopard in my twenties I have wanted to be an Italian aristocrat of noble lineage. However, the Count of San Bonifacio got there first and his family line can be traced back for over 1000 years whereas […]
Hotel Antica Torre di Via Tornabuoni n.1 in Florence
A Room With A View – Florence. E.M. Forster’s A Room With A View opens with a very proper English young lady, Miss Lucy Honeychurch, and her priggish cousin and chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett making a trip to Florence. On arrival at their pensione they discover that their room doesn’t have a view of the […]
Tuscany – Castles and Cuisine – Gaioli in Chianti
Hotel Castello di Spaltenna, Gaioli in Chianti – Tuscany: Someone asked me what the best meal I had eaten in Tuscany was, and I still can’t find a sensible answer. We tried a wide range of food. From family restaurants full of Italians on Liberation day to small bars. The food we brought from […]
Bruschetta
A Bit about Bruschetta: Normally in the UK I avoid ordering Bruschetta in restaurants. Overdried bits of bread topped with nice but overpriced bits of whatever, mostly tomato paste based and served ice cold. Thanks to my trip to Tuscany, I’m something of a Bruschetta convert now though. What made these different? Well, first of […]
To Tuscany
Exploring Tuscany: This is going to be a very, very brief post with a thank you to the people from To-Tuscany for their fabulous competition. I am just back from a wonderful week in Tuscany where thankfully the weather was considerably better than the UK. We stayed in a lovely hilltop hamlet, a collection of […]
Chocolate Cantuccini
Chocolate, almonds and a taste of Tuscany: One of my favourite occupations on my recent trip to Tuscany was nibbling on home made cantuccini with a glass of vin santo after a meal. The little biscuits which we sometimes mistakenly call biscotti over here, were packed with almonds and pleasantly crunchy. In Florence, we […]
Courgette and Fennel Pollen Flan
Experiment – Courgette Flan and Chicken Livers: This dish is a variation on a theme. The theme was set by Anna Binni at a recent blogging event hosted by Tuscany Now. Some of what we ate was quite familar and I was really interested to discover how to make the chicken liver dish for that […]
Cooking from Tuscany with Anna Binni
Learning to Cook Food From Tuscany: When I was offered the chance to meet and learn to cook with Anna Binni, I jumped at the opportunity. I do love food from Italy, especially Tuscany and I’ve always been curious about how the dishes I enjoy in restaurants and bars are really prepared. Sometimes it’s a […]