© 2011 Cooking in Tuscan at The Spice Lab
I never set out to be a cooking teacher. Or even a cook. I wasn’t raised in a kitchen.
Until I was 20 I thought spaghetti was made with ketchup - because that’s the way
my grandma made it! And then I moved to Thailand. And for the first time in my life,
I fell in love with food. The sound of bananas frying in hot oil, the heady and slightly
sweet aroma of satay grilling on the bbq, and that first burn on the lips, slightly
tingling, good as any first kiss, when you bite into a freshly made som tom. I couldn’t
leave those flavors behind. So I enrolled in cooking school. For a year I studied
all the flavors and textures of Thai cooking intensively, and then I did the same
with Indian. But it wasn’t enough. I needed
more. I needed the rich complicated flavors of the dishes sold in the market. I stalked
street vendors. Found favorites. And charmed, begged and bartered to get them to
teach me their secrets. Afterwards I started cooking in a French Restaurant to learn
European Technique. And then I moved to Tuscany and fell in love with food all over
again. I always though I would teach my family about food - but it was them who taught
me. I married a Tuscan chef, who’d worked in some of Florence's most popular restaurants.
A family of farmers, mushroom hunters and cooks. They literally taught me Tuscan
cuisine from the ground up. What to do with a beautiful zucchini flower, how to make
a tomato sing, the technique for grilling the perfect bistecca. And so, it is with
deep gratitude to those who taught me, that I can now teach you. Welcome, and I hope
to see you in class
