e our guest in an elegant Roman country home where you'll learn the basics of Italian cookery in a fabulous gourmet kitchen. This is an eight-lesson course, offered for eight consecutive days for international travellers, or twice monthly for four months for local residents. Daily itineraries might be intermingled so that a full course meal is prepared at each lesson. Each day's lesson will be followed by a delicious lunch.

The charming Hotel Degli Aranci, a villa dating from the early 1900s, is located in Parioli, Rome's elite residential neighborhood. This 56-room Hotel du Charme was built on the site of one of ancient Rome's Santa Priscilla catacombs, which still lie beneath the building. Its lovely outdoor terrace sits among orange and lemon trees...

Within walking distance of the hotel are shops and excellent restaurants (from elegant and expensive to simple and economical), as well as parks and neighborhoods where you can take pleasant strolls and get a feel for everyday life in Rome.

Making homemade pasta! An Italian signora and outstanding cook, will teach you the basics of making great Italian pastas — from fregnacce to timbale to pappardelle and more.

Rome's lively outdoor markets abound with fresh produce in all colors, shapes and sizes. But how do you prepare some of those exotic vegetables, with names like agretti, cardi, puntarelle and Roman artichokes? Today you'll learn how the best Italian cooks make their market selections — and turn them into works of culinary art.

Risotto is one of Italy's most flavorful, and versatile, dishes. This superb rice can be combined with vegetables, seafood, meats or aromatic spices to create a myriad of delectable recipes. In today's lesson you will learn to make several risotto dishes, including perhaps the extraordinary risotto allo Champagne (a fabulous New Year's Eve dish!), or risotto alla Milanese (also named risotto allo Zafferano for it's prime ingredient: the finest aromatic saffron produced in Abruzzi), or risotto nero (made with squid ink, a dish that has become a worldwide classic both for its unusual black color and for its delicate taste).

Limoncello! Lemon Creme! Fragolino! These are just a few of the divine after-dinner liqueurs that Italy has contributed to the world. They represent such a flavor of Italy, in fact, that most restaurant proprietors offer patrons a digestive, frequently made on the premises, at the completion of their meal. Today you will discover how to turn fresh lemon peel from succulent Sorrento lemons into the delectable limoncello and Lemon Creme. Or perhaps we'll try the fragolino, made from just-picked wild strawberries.

Your focus today will be on one of the most outstanding features of Italian cuisine: antipasti. Served with freshly baked bread and a glass of wine, these appetizers can become a meal in themselves!

Colorful thinly sliced vegetables lightly grilled or roasted and smothered in olive oil are a mainstay of any antipasti buffet. Also enticing are Acciughe al Limone (fresh anchovies with lemon), olive ascolane (deep fried stuffed olives), antipasti di mare (delicious fresh seafood salad) and, of course, the simple but flavorful bruschetta (toasted fresh bread with the most delectable toppings).

Depending on regional specialties, the assortment of desserts that complete Italian meals is overwhelming. Today we will learn to prepare some of the best:

Tiramisù (literally "pick me up," perhaps THE classic Italian dessert), Montebianco (a "mountain" of chestnut cream), crostata di ricotta (made with Italy's famous cheese), or semifreddo (a Bolognese ice cream and custard dessert).

Surrounded by glorious seas, Italians are masters of fish and seafood dishes. Today, depending on what's freshest at the market, you might learn to prepare polpettielli affogati (stewed baby octopus), sarde a beccafico (sardines stuffed with raisins and pine nuts), acqua pazza (fish simmered in a rich broth of tomato and wine), or whole salmon stuffed with seafood and roasted to perfection.

When Italians finally get to the main course of the meal, following the antipasto and the primo, their choices of flavorful secondo dishes are endless. Today we will prepare an assortment of main courses: osso buco in gremolata (stewed veal shanks with lemon), coda alla vaccinara (oxtail ragout), anatra alle prugne (duck with prunes) or faggiano alle olive (pheasant with olives). Our lunch today will include a guided wine tasting by internationally acclaimed wine expert Ian D'Agata, who will enlighten us on which Italian wines best accompany the various types of foods and flavors of your meal.

Following your final cooking class and lunch, join we will meet you back at your hotel for a farewell cocktail and the presentation of your course certificate, recipe booklet and commemorative hand-painted ceramic platter.

Seven nights double room accommodation with breakfast, six lunches, six gastronomical classes, course certificate, recipe booklet, and commemorative hand-painted ceramic platter.

Jan. 24-31, 2007
June 19-26, 2007
July 17-24, 2007
Aug. 14-21, 2007

Available upon request.