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08/09/2006 Archived Entry: "Seliano on British website"

Look at us! Cook at Seliano is now featured on two British websites.

One is called www.cookingholidays.co.uk. The other is called www.hub-uk.com. You can find us by clicking here: Cook at Seliano page. Or here: Cooking with the Baronessa.

Hope to see many of you in Italy next year.

In addition to the usual week-long Cook at Seliano Culinary Vacations with hands-on cooking sessions, as listed at www.hub-uk.com, Baronessa Cecilia and I are also planning a Come to Italy with Arthur Cucina e Cultura Tour of Calabria and/or Sicily for next June. This year we called it the Italian Roots tour (of Basilcata and Puglia), but we didn’t want any non-Italians to feel left out, or like they aren’t welcome. We’re happy to incorporate an ancestral town or two, however.

Here are our dates for next year:

Cook at Seliano

A note on the dates: These are our scheduled group sessions. However, if you have a group of six or more, I will be happy to arrange custom dates for your group within two weeks on either side of any scheduled date. At the same time, I am also available for one-day or two-day private sessions for two or more. The cost for that is $1,000 a day per couple, including one of Cecilia’s elegant rooms with private bath, all meals (with wine), touring the ancient Greek temples of Paestum with a classical archaeologist (and me). Other outings can be arranged. Indeed, you get my undivided attention. Each additional person is $500 a day, double occupancy.

March 18 to March 24: I am always asked about the weather in southern Italy at this time of year. “It’s great cooking weather,” as Cecilia once said, which is to say it is rarely below 50 degrees and it could possibly be sunny and in the 60s. March is also artichoke season on Cecilia’s farm, and the artichokes of Paestum are famous. We eat artichoke lasagna. We make braised artichokes Roman style. We make fried artichokes. We eat Cecilia’s divine marinated artichokes. Among other artichoke delicacies.

July 22 to 28, which I am calling “Not for Teachers Only,” even though I have set this summer date specifically to accommodate the many school teachers who have asked for a summer session. By the way, I posted earlier July dates in the newsletter I sent out about this, but a small group of educators have asked me to move it up a bit to accommodate them. I know it is a whole year away, and we never know what life will bring, but if you are interested in a summer session, please contact me as soon as you can. I have a feeling the “Not for Teachers Only” date is going to book-up quickly. By the way, all of Cecilia’s rooms are air-conditioned.

September 30 to October 6 is our fall session. It begins the week after the Jewish High Holy Days. We should be able to see olives being pressed. Last fall, we took our group to both an antique olive oil press and a modern one. Very interesting. And, of course, all the late summer produce is in season, so the cooking possibilities are fantastic.

December 30 to January 5 is our winter session, which will include a gala New Year’s Eve party. Cecilia usually has about 70 people or so for this party, including her family and many of our close friends. We sometimes get a DJ for dance music, but we always have a Neapolitan singer/guitarist. If we are lucky, Cecilia will get up and sing, too. Her voice is not very good, but she has all the gestures down pat. In addition, we of course get to eat all the festive foods of the season, of which there are many in the Napolitano-Salernitano repertoire.

Cucina e Cultura
Also next year, we are going to repeat what I have been calling our Italian Roots Tour, which is fully booked for this year at the end of September into the first week of October. This year, we are going to Basilicata and Puglia, the two regions just south of Cecilia’s farm in Paestum, where we start the trip with a long weekend, visiting the local sights, including the famous Greek temples of Paestum and a local mozzarella dairy. Next June, we are planning on going to Calabria and Sicily, and I am calling the trip “Come to Italy with Arthur for Cucina e Cultura,” so as not to exclude non Italian-Americans, and to point out that we eat and drink very well, and also visit food production facilities (cheese dairies, wineries, etc.) along with cultural touring. The tour is scheduled for June 8 to 16 or 17. Of course, we are still willing and happy to stop in someone’s ancestral village or city en route.