“About 10 years ago, I was driving down a two lane road through some of the most beautiful scenery in Tuscany. It was a road I knew well for I’d driven it every day over the past two years. It led from the small rural town where I live to the medieval city of Siena. Looking at the golden rays of the setting sun pouring over the green fields of winter wheat, I shook my head in disbelief, exclaiming out loud, “Holy Cow!! I’m actually living my dream.”

I live and work in Tuscany, teaching cooking classes, leading culinary and wine tours and sharing what I’ve learned about regional Italian cuisine with visitors from all over the world.

If I had gone to the library to consult a book on “How to Live and Work in Italy,” I’d still be sitting there, frozen under the avalanche of information on work permits and visas requirements. But I followed a path and, like Alice, fell down a hole into Wonderland.

My passion for good food, prepared with loving care and shared in a convivial setting, was instilled at an early age. I grew up in an Italian-American family on the east coast. We also lived in Verona, Italy for four years. I went to college; I worked in corporate America. The excellent salary I made went towards traveling, throwing dinner parties, eating in top restaurants and drinking fine wines. But it wasn’t enough.

When I was 36, I received a small inheritance from an aunt–enough to pursue a dream and change my life. I wasn’t in a serious relationship and I didn’t have kids. “If not now, when?,” I wondered.

I quit my job, sold my house, put my stuff in storage and took off to Italy for six months. After attending cooking school in Bologna, I traveled around Italy, watching the seasons change. I was blown away by the elegant simplicity of the food and how the dishes changed as the months went by. The cuisine of northern and central Italy was unlike anything I’d experienced in my southern Italian family upbringing.

I was fortunate enough to spend the last two months of my sojourn on a rural estate, Spannocchia, where I worked in the kitchen in exchange for room and board. Situated deep in the wooded hills south of Siena, it was my first exposure to Tuscan cuisine.

I loved the simplicity of the dishes: the strong flavors of rosemary and sage, the reliance on what was growing in the garden in the late fall, the celebration of harvest, wine, and new olive oil. I worked with their Tuscan cook to formulate her recipes in English.

When I returned to America, I started culinary school at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York. An internship with Odette Fada at San Domenico restaurant continued my education in regional Italian cuisine. I worked in restaurants, making $8 an hour. It was a pittance of what I’d made in my corporate job, but I was so much more fulfilled.

In the spring of 2000, I returned to Spannocchia for a visit. The owners, who by now were my friends, asked me to stay for the season. I jumped at the chance, planning to return to the “real world” at the end of the year.

Immersing myself in Tuscan culture and traditions, eager to learn as much as possible, I yearned to share my experiences with people who shared my passion. The visitors to the estate were the perfect foil. At the end of the year, rather than move back to the U.S., I stayed and found my own apartment in town.

Never before had anything felt so right. I learned that when you encounter road blocks, you don’t beat your head and work harder to overcome them; you look for the road that is wide open and sunny, and walk down it.

In 2001, I built a website, choosing the name, Ecco La Cucina, which means “here’s the kitchen.”

Gina Stipo, Ecco La Cucina

I applied for and received a visa and went through the bureaucratic nightmare of filing every year to renew my permit to stay. I am now a permanent resident.

What began as simple classes teaching pasta has grown into culinary workshops on Tuscan cuisine; week-long culinary tours throughout Italy; market visits and winery tours. My sister has become my partner in the U.S., and we make a great team.

By showing up, working hard, developing relationships and giving people value for their vacation dollars, I’ve built a solid reputation and a strong business. Life in a foreign country wasn’t always easy, but what I’ve learned is immeasurable.”

I keep saying to you, dear reader, ICDT–I Can Do That! If Gina can do it, so can you! But you must create your own adventure, your own path.

If you would like to know more about Gina, perhaps attend her next week-long Tuscany classes and culinary tours in June, you can visit her website and plan your trip now!

Courtesy of the International Butler Academy

Don’t laugh. The rich are getting richer and along with extreme wealth comes the irresistible desire to flaunt it.  What could be grander than owning a small castle or a large mansion complete with a professional butler and a household staff?

At the French Culinary Institute in New York City, there are three classes each lasting 25 or 30 hours. Topics include Culinary Essentials, Essentials of Household Cleaning and Organization and Laundry Essentials.

The fees are $1,995 for culinary classes and laundry classes, and $1,750 for the cleaning class. It is recommended the student butler buy a $100 ironing board with a Teflon cover, rather than one with a cloth cover

If you aspire to the pinnacle of butlering at Buckingham Palace, Brian Hoey author of Not in Front of the Corgis tells us: “In Buckingham Palace alone there are 339 full-time staff, eating up to 600 meals a day in the kitchens, but only about a dozen come into regular contact with the Queen.”

He further reports: “The footmen and housemaids start on a basic salary of £13,634 a year (or approximately US $21,542), which can rise after five years by £2,000 a year. Upon promotion to senior footman, a salary of £15,634 (or approximately US $24,702) is paid.

A butler starts on an annual salary of £15,000 (or approximately $23,700), plus accommodation. For a liveried helper in the Royal Mews, who is required to have had some experience with horses and who will be seen riding behind the queen on one of the state carriages at official ceremonial occasions, the starting salary is £17,169 (or approximately US $27,127), with livery provided. Casual workers get £7.75 (or approximately US $12.24).

The queen’s royal chef is the highest-paid member of the domestic household, with an annual salary of £45,000 (or approximately US $71,100).”  The rate of exchange varies from minute to minute but (today is roughly) £1 = $.158.

If you’d like to live in a palace, a castle, a downtown or uptown abby,this is the way to go. ICDT! (I Could Do That!)

Matter of Fact:

• Walter Monkton was the butler for the Duke of Windsor. As such, he worked without salary for 20 years. On his retirement, he was rewarded with a cigarette case on which his engraved name was spelled incorrectly. Whether or not he smoked, we may suppose that he fumed!

Recommended book

Agar, Stanley. The Butler’s Guide to Clothes Care, Managing the Table, Running the Home and Other Graces. Simon and Schuster Publishers, 1981

Organizations To Know

You can find a worthy survey of professional butler programs at The Butler Bureau.

They search for new sources studying kitchen inventories, trade and taxation records, and ancient cave carvings, drawings, menus and then look around for ways to use their knowledge. Their information may be combined with a job in travel, teaching, or writing.”

Culinary libraries need the help of historians, as do academic journals and publishers. So, too, do modern movie makers and producers of TV series. Directors must make sure Braveheart warriors, diners on The Titanic, Upstairs, Downstairs and Harry Potter characters eat the food of their period in history.

Trend predictors and futurists rely on historical patterns too because it is imperative to understand the past in order to grasp what is happening now and what is likely to occur in the future.

Writing the history of what we eat provides a geographic destiny, and social history of the nation. Food puts everything into a living, ever evolving reference derived from paintings, photographs as well as diaries and oral histories.

I CAN DO THAT! ICDT!

We should remember that funerals are for the living.  The most honored survivors walk slowly and mourn from a lectern.  Grieving friends who are held in high esteem are invited to shoulder the casket from outdoors to indoors and back out again.

Others simply sob.

All this heavy-duty emotion is sure to build up a hearty appetite.

Brunch for the Bereaved is a niche market that is assured of growth as the population ages and the inevitable becomes, well, unavoidable.

Restaurants catering to mourners should specialize in tasteful advertising and appropriate interior design.

Chef Shoop is part of a team of oncologists, naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, mind-body specialists and therapists that use a whole-person approach to ensure optimal nutrition for their patients. This approach is based on the fact that cancer does not affect one part of the body but rather the body as a whole — as well as all aspects of patients’ lives.  He says: “Our purpose is so wonderful and beautiful…really it’s about two Ls — loving and listening.”

Note: Personal and private chefs may specialize in a specific health area, for example preparing gluten free meals or tasty food for those living healthily with diabetes.  Even folk yearning to shed a couple of pounds can be helped to slimness with the aid of a personal chef.  Do you remember how much weight Oprah lost? And her cook’s cookbook sold literally millions of copies.n

Reese Schonfeld was a very big shot back then. He was managing editor of United Press Movietone News, Vice President of United Press International Television News. He founded the Independent Television News Association, the first satellite-delivered television news service. With his pal Ted Turner, he created CNN and served as its first President. Today more people watch the TVFN than CNN!

Today close to 100 million households can tune in to the Food Network.  There are stations in Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Knoxville.  There are viewers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Monaco, Polynesia and Great Britain.

What is turning this huge audience on to all these American Culinary Idols? It’s Big Boy Mario Batali, the Nasty Bits of Anthony Bourdain and Paula Deen, the Southern Belle who could dare serve grits with grape jelly and red-eye gravy. And Sandra Dee as she concocts a store-bought package of lady fingers, a plastic container of vanilla pudding, a whisper of artificial rum flavoring, a jar of jam and a squirt of whipped topping and declares it “mostly homemade.”

And the Barefoot Contessa who cooks for her well-heeled pals.  And the perpetually smiling Giada (with her revealing cleavage alluring generations of boy culinary students). And the lovely Lydia and La Bella Nigella and sweet Sara M. and  perkily determined EVOO’d Rachael   — American Eye Dolls almost all.

The food network is shamelessly derivative.  Science channels are morphing into the food channel. So are the travel programs and adventures in survival. Competition is hot. Quick.  Who can make the best ice cream while marooned on a blazing tropical island where there are no utensils and ingredients, (don’t even think of using the palm  oil).  You have just 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival of 2,602 Carnival Cruise line passengers.  The winner is…pause…pause…wild applause for the Instantly Iced Sandy Snapping Turtle Smoothie.

Who’ll take the cake for transporting turrets of spun-sugar from here to there without dropping it?  Who will be the judge of the judged?  Who will deliver forth the next incandescent banality?

Paddy Chayevsky, who wrote about the television as mass madness wouldn’t have believed just how completely mad the medium has become. We have traveled light miles from the simplicity of the Pillsbury bake-off. We remember our beloved Julia who inspired three generations to just go into the kitchen and cook.  How we yearn for Jacques and the Galloping Gourmet, (but not the frugal one.)

The genie is out of tube and we are spending way too much time searching for the next Aladdin with a new lamp to rub.We don’t want to watch anything remotely serious or educational. Just bring on the new game, the new competition. The new STAR.

If the job of celebrity TV chef appeals to you, first take media training, then try to get a start at a small television station, then study giraffes so you will be able to stand head and shoulders above all others.  Bam!

This astonishing fact appears to be true.

A plant biologist at the University of Nancy in France reveals there are two sexes of truffles. Thus it can be revealed that by injecting the roots of certain oak trees with the spores of both mates, it become possible to produce predictability.

Lay this wisdom at the feet of genetic engineers who unraveled the truffle DNA containing, as it turns out, 7,500 genes (compared with 30,000 in the human genome.)

If only the perfumers could recreate the aroma of truffles that drives pregnant pigs, dogs, squirrels, boars and other wild life mad with desire, they could make a fortune. (Incidentally a gene that is found in rice has been detected in male underarm sweat…)

I just thought you might like to ponder the possibilities…

Yesterday I received this revealed secret: “If there’s anything I would love to do more than eating, cooking or cycling, it’s talking. I love talking.

How terrific.

A radio show!

It could be a proposal for a one-minute slot or a 30-minute program.

How to get started?

Address your proposal to the radio station manager describing your idea in one short paragraph: i.e. Food & Drink Magazine on the Radio is a lively, half-hour weekly radio program that celebrates the enjoyment of food and drink.

You will interview cookbook authors, food business entrepreneurs, chefs, restaurateurs, food truck owners, farmers and physicians, nutritionists, safety regulators, beekeepers, bread bakers and critics. On the menu too are those responsible for feeding school children, hospital patients, the military, astronauts and those working in the kitchens of federal prisons, museums, zoos and caterers of grand parties. And when our guests don’t come to talk to us, we will go to them, even if the journey takes us to kitchen of the QM2 or The White House. Late-breaking culinary news is heard here first, along with interviews and reports from the fascinating people who work in the food arena to reports on new products, openings and closings and  of the American food chain — from the farm to the store, from the skillet to the plate.

Send a sample audio tape with your proposal.

Who might be interested in accepting your proposal. Local radio station managers and college radio broadcasters.

National Public Radio invites guests to read their essays for local or national audiences. A colleague at the CIA contributes a quiz program on NPR. It’s totally brilliant.

What is your expertise and can you translate it to this media? It is a wonderfully challenging thing to do…even possibly…a career.

Keep talking…And listening. (Some folk’s idea of listening is to talk louder…)

Carving up a whole animal whether a whale or an ox or a suckling pig or the Thanksgiving turkey has always expressed not only the interconnectedness of the family — and in a wider context — the community, but also the hierarchy of each member of the group. The carver is traditionally the head of the household whose responsibility it is to assign various cuts of the protein and to determine the size of the serving.

The Monk’s Chicken

A man of the cloth was invited to carve a chicken for the family meal. He cut off the head and handed it to the father, as he was the head of the household. He served the neck to the mother because she supported the head. The wings were given to the “flighty” daughters while the sons received the feet, as they were the foundation on which the next generation would stand. That done, the carver ate the rest of the bird himself.

The role of the butcher can be interpreted in many ways. Some confine themselves to simply butchering the language.

An enterprising trucker named his vehicle K9. He caters to dogs: He forms dog biscuits into an ice cream-shaped cone and tops it with a “chilli burger” or “bacon burger.” There’s no telling who loved the idea more: the dogs or their owners.

Note: Americans spent $56 billion on pets last year.

Close to 62 percent of American households own a pet. An entrepreneur promotes a vitamin-infused “mountain-spring water” for dogs. The price: $3.30 a bottle, about as much as a gallon of milk.