Dear Food and Wine Lover,

The Tuscan Chef Easter in Tuscany...what a dream.

We still have 4 places available for the 3-night Easter Traditional Cooking Course at our Tuscan Chef location.  From April 6th to the 9th, cook at this prestigious Tuscan monastery and wine estate in Chianti.  We are offering a special deeply discounted price, contact us if this tempts your palette.

Located just south of Florence, this Tuscan monastery also produces wine, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar & other products. Delicious food & wine courses are featured, brought to you by the young Tuscan Guido Stucchi Prinetti, continuing the renowned culinary tradition of Tuscany.

The Tuscan Chef Delicious Kudos.

Travel & Leisure: The very best of Europe Yearbook 2006 *  Condé Nast Traveler: The Hot List 2006 * Town & Country: October 2005

Foodie's Corner.

The Tuscan Chef's Dreamy Dinner in Tuscany.

"Spring is near in many corners of the world, keep a watch out for fresh, juicy tomatoes for this delicious Tuscan recipe."

Potato Dumplings with Fresh Tomato Sauce.

Gnocchi di Patate con Pomodoro Fresco e Ricotta Secca

Dumplings (gnocchi):

400g yellow potatoes

125g flour

3 pinches of salt

Sauce:

6 ripe tomatoes

6 cloves of garlic

75ml extra virgin olive oil

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

300g of dried ricotta cheese

To make the dumplings: Boil the potatoes (with skins) in salted water. Peel and blend the potatoes. Add the flour and salt mixing thoroughly. Divide the 'dough' into 4 and roll into sticks, cut each stick up into little cubes.

To make the sauce: Blanch the tomatoes for one minute, then peel and chop.  Drain the ricotta and lay out on baking sheet lined with parchment paper, place in the oven for 20 minutes at 160°F.

In a frying pan, heat up some of the olive oil and sauté the garlic. Add the tomatoes, the thyme and leave to cook on low heat for 5 minutes.

Put enough salted water on the boil to cook the dumplings and when they rise to the surface they are ready to be removed.  Sauté the dumplings in the pan with the tomatoes and cover with the ricotta cheese. Serve while hot. Serves 6

Chef's Note. Dry Ricotta is a firmer version of the fresh variety. The word Ricotta means "recooked" and is made by heating the whey from another cooked cheese and combined with skim milk or pasteurised milk. Dry Ricotta cheese is firmer than cottage cheese but grainier, is white, less moist than the fresh variety of ricotta and has a mild sweet flavour with an added hint of salt.  Find it at fine gourmet shops in your area if you don't want to make your own.

Suggested Menu.  Serve with Flat Bread with Rosemary.  Dissolve 2 tbsp yeast in 1 c lukewarm water for 10 minutes. In bowl mix 3 cups flour with 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary, make a well, and add yeast, stirring until dough is formed. Knead the dough until smooth, 10 minutes. Form a ball, place in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap and leave until doubles in size. Brush a 10 inch tart pan with some extra virgin olive oil. Punch down the dough, roll out with a rolling pin into a circle the size of the pan. Transfer dough to pan and let rise again, 20 minutes. Brush the flat bread with oil, sprinkle with little salt and bake at 400F for 30 minutes or until slightly golden.

Uncorked!

The Tuscan Chef's Wine in Tuscany...A Match Made in Heaven.

Tuscan wine and food are made for each other.  Each can be enticing, but when put together magic happens.  Which came first, the wine or the food, is open for debate.  There is no doubt, however, that Tuscany's peppery olive oil, simple pheasant food and fresh local produce marry perfectly with its wines.  You could easily pair a 2004 Chianti Classico with this pasta in tomato sauce - Badia a Coltibuono has always been one of the best Chianti Classico wines. With a history dating back around one thousand years, this does not appear to have happened by chance. 

Location.
Our Tuscan Chef location is at one of the leading wine estates in Chianti and guided wine tastings & visits to the wine-making facility can also be arranged upon request (tasting of rare historical vintages can also be organized). 

History.
The wine estate is about one thousand years old, but its prehistory takes us back to Etruscan times and beyond. As we know it today, the monastery (named Abbey of the Good Harvest), dates from the middle of the eleventh century. In 1051 the monks of the Vallombrosan Order, a Tuscan reform of the Benedictines, founded the Abbey and also began planting the first vineyards in the Upper Chianti area.

Go Organic.
After ten centuries of uninterrupted agricultural tradition, organic production methods are still used to safeguard the land. Its philosophy of environmental sustainability has made it the first leading wine-producing firm in Chianti to have reached this important objective.

Trendspotting.

 Wine-by-text...not in Tuscany.

After encountering a great wine in a restaurant or at a friend's house, instead of vowing to remember the name and vintage, Dutch consumers can now dash off an 'sms' to BuyYourWine.com. The online wine seller will then get back to them with a price and delivery details.

In the US, WineZap offers a similar service. If someone emails or texts them the vintage and wine name, WineZap will email or text them the current low, high and average prices for that wine. If a user adds their zipcode, WineZap includes a list of the nearest retailers that stock the wine, as well as their prices.

Both companies are currently offering the service at no charge. Another example of catering to people's insatiable desire for relevant information, when and where they want it. Wine-by-text is a great little add-on both for merchants like BuyYourWine, and for intermediaries like WineZap, and it could of course be expanded with such obvious options as letting customers send in cameraphone pictures of wine labels or barcodes.

Trend spotted on trendwatch.com's trendy web site.

To find out more about any of our culinary vacations please feel free to call me at 416.238.9987 (Toronto) or 1.800.839.5795 (in North America). Email works well too at jackie@gourmetsafari.com.

Gastronomically, Jackie

Gourmet Safari supports BREAKFAST FOR LEARNING - proceeds from every culinary vacation go to this special charity.

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