On a cooking holiday you escape to a simpler, life of times past

filled with real joys: food cooked slowly, lovingly by a cosy

group, sampling rich regional wines, and savouring genuine local

dishes. Later, you share experiences heart to heart, sitting

around the table for hours with friends; feeling at peace. In

Italy, you fall in love with a sweeter, slower life. You're far

away from your world and all its demands.

You love the sensuality of it all. In Tuscany Italy, you savour

fresh sage, oregano, basil, lemon, wine and rose perfumes wafting

on the breeze in the kitchen and garden.

In Piedmont, you admire a delicate asparagus flan garnished with

purple wild flowers, grated black truffles and a fresh green oak

leaf on a white plate.

In Sicily, your taste buds go wild over roast figs with honey and

orange. With Diana in Position you use your hands to crush

tomatoes for sauce, tear up fresh basil, peel skins off roasted

peppers and flatten chicken breasts. Great childlike Italian fun!

It goes without saying you fall for Italian food and wines. The

Italians use fresh ingredients in season. Spring means artichoke,

asparagus, sweet pea and seafood dishes in Venice. Fall is

mushrooms, game, truffles in Umbria and Emilia-Romagna: duck with

vin santo, pasta with porcini mushrooms and truffles.

Wines range from classic full reds like Barolo and Brunello in

Piedmont and Tuscany, to more rustic reds such as Primitivo in

southern Puglia. You enjoy dessert wines from dry vin santo in

Tuscany to sweet, intense Passito in Sicily.

You fall in love with hauntingly beautiful landscapes. Cook with

chefs in Piedmont’s Barolo wine country in northwest Italy, and

look out over waves of gentle hills fading into the distance,

little valleys, patchwork green hills blanketed in vineyards,

forests and fields full of fruit and nut trees, hills crowned

with imposing medieval castles.

On a Sicily cooking tour, you fall in love with the art all

around you. Art in every day life; survey pyramids of smaller and

smaller jars of green and black olives and hot red sauces piled

high in the Palermo market. The art of ancient architects…

remains of Greek temples stand battered but tall on a lonely

field, staring out to sea in the golden light of sunset.

Is it any wonder you fall in love with people too, in such a

relaxed, sensual environment where your heart and soul can roam

free?

In the Barolo wine country in northwest Italy, you cook with

chefs in their restaurants, explore medieval towns, and taste

fine wines with winery owners who treat you like old friends.

At the start of another cooking tour, one couple seemed a little

distant. The husband had been very reluctant to go. By the end of

the week, they were dancing and holding hands. They fell in love

all over again. Who can resist the romance of Italy!

Of course, you fall in love with the Italian people. They talk

about life, about feelings, with no pretences. Italians lead

busy, full lives, yet somehow find time for heart-to-heart talks

over food and wine.

Rediscover the person you were before you got so busy with

obligations and things. Was it you who piled so much marzipan

fruit on top of your dessert you won a prize for the worst

decoration, or were you always first up dancing when the music

started?

So go ahead, indulge in a sensual, hedonistic cooking tour in

Italy, fall in love, bring some of that joy home with you!