Last day in Tuscany :-(

We're having a fantastic time here...both cooking and getting to know the people on our cooking team - they're a lot of fun. This morning we visited the Agriturismo Belagaggio, a beautiful farm, where we cooked with 3 very talented women from the same family - the grandmother Ada, her daughter Antonella, and Antonella's daughter, Gloria. We made fiori di zucca (zucchini flowers in batter deep fried and filled with melted mozzarella and a single anchovy), pasta al forna (essentially lasagna with the most delicious meat sauce) and tiramisu - all delicious of course. Here are some photos of the little house used only for baking pizzas. That's quite a fire they have going in that building.






Here are three of my fellow cooks getting the pizzas to the oven.


Here's a view from their farm looking out toward the village of Montefollonico nestled on the hill.


While we cooked all those delicious dishes Carl and Alec visited two wineries Avignonesi and Palazzo Vecchio. Both agreed the wineries were "top rate ".









After lunch we headed to the Regale winery for a wine tasting with the owner Flavio Andreucci. The winery has been in his family for over 300 years and he showed us a bill of sale his family made to Napoleon. Flavio provided us with several glasses of his wines and then took us through many hilarious stories of his travels in the USA.



Flavio owns an enormous Mastiff dog with gorgeous fur. I had to have a photo with him.


Tonight is the farewell dinner. I will post all the details tomorrow. Then on to Rome for a week.
Ciao!


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More blissful moments in Tuscany

This week in Tuscany has been perfect. Every morning we meet with the women from the village to learn their cooking techniques and cook up the most delicious lunches Today we made eggplant parmaggiano, ribollito soup, roast pork and panna cotto for dessert...and this is just for lunch! Here are a few of the cooks.



On Monday evening we dined at La Porta ristorante in Monticchiello which was excellent. Here is a photo of our group at the restaurant.


On Wednesday we spent the day in the historic city of Siena. As you can see from these photos, just a beautiful city to tour around.









Visited the Siena cathedral - one of the most beautiful churches in the world. Built in white and dark green marble - a very unusual striped appearance. Here are some pics from both inside and out of the cathedral.






The Il Campo in Siena where the famous Palio horse race is held each year.




Here's our tour bus that takes us all around Tuscany.



Does anyone remember the scene from Gladiator where Russell Crowe is reunited with his wife? Here's where it was shot.



And here are more scenes from Tuscany that need no further description.









Ciao for now!

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Tuscany!

We flew from Dublin to Rome last Sat. On Friday night we were out at a wonderful restaurant in Dublin, Trocadero, with Richard, Niall, Carina, Petrina and Mom. Didn't get back to our hotel room until 1:30am and we had to get up at 4am for a 7am flight. After our week in Ireland our livers need detoxifying - had a great time but, my God, it was exhausting!

Met our friends Jennifer and Alec at the Rome airport and now we're in the lovely Tuscan town of Montefollonico - a small medieval hilltop town. The cooking school is located here. The scenery is just stunning!















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Needless to say we are being fed constantly here at the cooking school which is situated in a 300 year old farmhouse and operates out of a Michelin starred restaurant, La Chiusa....the food is excellent...wonderful people running the school. The classes are a combination of observation and participation...you can be hands on as much as you want. Learned today to make ravioli and "pici" - the local Tuscan noodle. Every meal is 4 courses so it will be impossible not to put on a few pounds here. Yesterday Carl and I walked from Montepulciano to Montefollonico - a distance of 7 kilometres, all in an effort to burn off a few calories. Weather here is perfect. Apparently it rained everyday last week.

Each night we dine at a different local restaurant. Last night was 13 Gobbi and tonight was La Porta in the charming town of Monticiello. Carl and Alec are off on a wine tour tomorrow while we cook up another delicious lunch. Life is pretty good here.

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Dublin

After a late night at Carina's with lots of great food and drink, we finally rose to another glorious day of weather. We took the speedy M6 highway to Dublin and arrived around 4pm for a two day stay. Love being back in Dublin.

We made plans to meet up with the Nugent cousins - Maureen, Kate and James - at Pichet restaurant in central Dublin. Had a really enjoyable evening with them. See pics below.








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Quite day at Ballinasloe

Nice relaxing day at Ballinasloe. Carina hosted a great dinner for us last night with several of her and Niall's friends. Lots of excellent wines flowed. We spent most of today sitting about and talking. Did a quick drive out to see the battlefield where the Battle of Aughrim took place in 1691. It was a devastating loss for Irish Catholics and confirmed Protestant ascendency for the next 150 years. Here's a photo of Carl and I front of a memorial cross at the site.


The weather has been amazing here - today was hot and sunny again. The weather was so nice we had lunch outside in the garden - a first!






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The big mountain at Westport - Sept 9

Lots of driving today on Monday. We travelled 4 hours from Clogheen to the lovely town of Westport in county Mayo. As you drive into westport, you can't help but notice the massive mountain Croagh Patrick looming over the city. To me it looked the size of Mount Everest so when Carl said we are climbing to the top, I thought he was absolutely crazy! Fast forward one hour and we are in our hiking gear making our way up the mountain like the thousands of pilgrims who have gone before us trying to reach the tiny church St Patrick reputedly built at the peak. It's a challenging hike. The first half of the 2500 foot ascent is steep. The mountain is covered in loose stones so you must constantly watch your footing - thank God we brought our hiking poles! Carl has reached the top twice on previous trips and I had great intentions of reaching the peak too but alas it was not meant to be. At 2000 feet, two things happened: we realized we were going to run out of time (we didn't start the climb until 3:30) and could possibly still be on the mountain after 8pm, and I then just got plain exhausted - the last 500 feet are at a 20% grade with ridiculous amount of loose stone so we turned back. The trip down is slow because you have to watch your footing on the loose stones the whole way down. The views of Clew Bay are spectacular though and make the arduous trip worthwhile. Total length of the climb up and back was 12 kilometres.






St Patrick greeting visitors to his mountain.





Headed back to hotel to rest our aching bodies. We then spent the evening at Matt Malloy's pub (he's one of The Chieftains) watching live Irish traditional music - a real "session" - they were all very talented musicians. Before the pub we enjoyed excellent smoke salmon and fish and chips at The West restaurant. Tomorrow we head to Ballinasloe to stay with uncle Niall and meet up with Mom who is arriving there tomorrow too.


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Donkey love!

Arrived in Dublin! Flight was good despite being delayed due to those nasty thunderstorms in Toronto on Fri night. We quickly picked up our rental car at the airport and headed for Tipperary. We are staying in the smal. Town of Clogheen at The Old Convent hotel - a former convent of the Blessed Heart order who were nurses and teachers in this area for many years. This whole area has gone mad over the final hurling championship of which the Tipperary team is a finalist. The team colours fly from almost every home and business. The final is on Sunday on Sunday.

A young American woman and her Irish chef husband bought the convent 6 years ago from the nuns and have turned it into a first rate hotel and restaurant - the food is excellent. They raise their own chickens and also have a few rescue donkeys on site. They told us a very funny story about the donkeys. They had 3 female donkeys to start and then heard of a neglected and abused male donkey who needed a home. They initially said no because the male donkey had not been neutered but relented and put the donkey in a separate pen away from the other donkeys. However despite his poor health and physical condition the male donkey got out of his pen the first night, headed for the female donkeys and managed to impregnate all 3 donkeys in one night! They now have 7 donkeys living on site.












Sunday we got up early, had a huge Irish breakfast and hit the road. We headed for Ballybacon church to visit the grave of my grandfather Richard Walsh. The church is in a remote rural area of Tipperary with stunning scenery of the Knockmealdown mountains. His grave is among many others from the Walsh family.












We then headed off to search for the Walsh "ancestral home" near Ardfinnan where my grandfather, his parents and 8 siblings lived. We got a bit lost and asked a woman walking along the road for directions. Turned out she is married to my second cousin Paddy Duggan whose mother was a niece of my grandfathers. Within minutes we brought to their home introduced to everyone, plied with wine and had 2 hours of hilarious conversation. Here are some pics of Paddy, his wife Nora and daughter Ellen









After all that we finally arrived at the Walsh ancestral home where Anne Walsh who married a nephew of my grandfather still lives.






The place is a bit dilapidated with farm animals wandering about (see horse above). Only in Ireland would someone say about their home "the house seems a bit small but we built an extension on in 1901"! I learned quite a bit more geneological information about the Walshes from Anne which was great. Then we drove on to the Condon ancestral home, an ancient Norman keep near Mitchelstown. Very interesting and rare tower built with curved corners




On tomorrow to Westport to hopefully climb Croagh Patrick. Weather has been amazing - sunny and warm both days. Even the locals can't believe it!

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