Dream vacations for food lovers

Imagine lounging in an Italian retreat overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, taking a private tour of Italy’s best producer of buffalo mozzarella, having a guided tour of ancient temple ruins, and visiting a fig and chocolate confectionery, all the while getting great advice on your food writing. Does that sound like an dream vacation to you? If so, it could come true. Food writers Kathy Gunst and Domenica Marchetti are hosting a five day food writing workshop next May that is “designed to clear your head, motivate you, and make you a better food writer.” 

If the food writing part is not enticing, there are plenty of other culinary tours hosted by food writers, chefs, and cookbook authors that allow you to take in the Italian countryside and eat plenty of delicious food. GuilIano Hazan (son of famed cookbook writer Marcella Hazan) and his wife run a cooking school in northern Italy that offers total immersion in Italian food, wine, and life. Moving south, Rosetta Costantino offers culinary tours of Calabria and Sicily. (Only a few spots left through 2021!) Also in Sicily you will find the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School, featuring workshops led by authors like Rachel Roddy, Renee Erickson, David Tanis, Jeremy Lee, and Sarah Owens.

Emiko Davies, author of Tortellini at Midnight, offers cooking classes and workshops in Florence and other locations. Katie Parla, who wrote the highly regarded Tasting Rome, hosts culinary walking tours of Rome if that location appeals to you. There are loads of other cooking schools such as Badia a Coltibuono in Tuscany, originally established by famed chef Lorenza de Medici, and La Buona Scuola, which has chef-led classes every year. This year Naomi Pomeroy is holding court. 

If you want to go a bit further afield, Tessa Kiros, Mary Valle, and Lean Timms are offering a food and photography workshop in Ikaria, Greece this September. Budget too tight for these field trips? You can also find great Italian cooking classes closer to home, like those offered by Caldesi Cucina, London.

Italian food not your thing? Then check out the Master Series classes offered at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York City and sponsored by IACP. They are being taught by culinary greats such as Dorie Greenspan, Ellie Krieger, Scott Peacock, Rick Bayless, and Joanne Weir. Or perhaps you will be like me and only be traveling through your cookbooks. If you do take a culinary vacation, we’d love to hear the details.