Checking our recipes before the group arrives

“Every evening, around the supper table, usually dimly lit by four candles dripping on Chianti bottles, we would have length y discussions on various topics such as art marketing, the importance of linguistics in contemporary arts, sociology of the arts, and semantics. Yes, even semantics, since “everything means something”: every work of art needs to carry a conscious meaning or an intention.

Our suppers would start around eight in the evening and typically end some three hours later. And every night our guests were always amazed at the beauty and the scrumptiousness of our meals — we had learned how to cook by working out hundreds of times our recipes for our Studio Italia painters, as well as for family and friends, and by tasting authentic dishes and new flavours in so many ristoranti and trattorie in Tuscany and all over Italy. As the years passed we came to notice that, around the end of each Studio Italia workshop, the same comment sneaked back at the table: “Your meals are so good! Why don’t you write down your recipes? Photocopy them into a little booklet and sell them as a souvenir of this wonderful workshop. We would be the first ones to buy this book.” We smiled politely, thinking everyone was being well mannered because of the group context, thinking that everyone was able to cook as well as we did. And our answer was always the same: “One day, when we will have some time between two articles or two classes or two flights or…” One year, a participant in the publishing business suggested that these recipes be “published,” and she was dead serious. So, maybe all our former participants were right. We finally came to accept the fact. Why not?” (from icscis’ future recipe book introduction; to be published soon.) Keep watching our blog for some of our recipes!