“Cucina e amore…” says Piero. Cooking is love. The wood-fired ovens are burning here at La Cucina al Focolare – Cooking by the Fireside, the original crown in Peggy Markel’s Culinary Adventures. We are in the Florentine hills of the Arno valley, outside of Florence surrounded by olive gardens and a stone’s …

Behind the bar on any given day or evening, are a pair of clever wine lovers, better known as foxes. Le volpi e l’uva (The Fox and the Grape) is tucked on a back side street in Florence, across the Arno river not far from the Ponte Vecchio. It’s is my …

  “Sour Cherries, After GG”, 2011 by Paulette Tavormina ~ Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley, London June encapsulates the end of spring and beginning of summer. Here in Florence, it’s the time of the swallows dancing euphorically in the sky, the weather is warm enough to bare shoulders and sit in outdoor cafés …

We can learn the ways of the old ones by going back to how they ate before the Industrial Revolution, back when there was integrity, family and story involved in producing an artisan product by hand. With the help of Slow Food and other movements, there is a global resurgence …

Cooking in Tuscany for poet David Whyte’s group. Today we made a feast at my friend Lori Di Mori’s house, for the “pelligrini” after their walk and talk through the woods. Wouldn’t be a bad sight to come upon this.