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Food & Wine

Cooking In Florence

8 days/7 nights, Dec. 1-8, 2008.

Highlights: From Cordon Bleu chefs, learn to prepare and enjoy regional Tuscan dishes such as taglierini alla cerrettiera (carters’ pasta), panzanella (bread salad) and castagnaccio (chestnut cake)/Florence museums, shopping, 19th-century synagogue/Siena day tour.

Land price including class, $3,095. Noncooking spouse, $2,995. Single supp., $550.

CookEuro (New York, NY; 212/794-1400, www.cookeuro.com).

Egypt food riots

For decades, Egypt has provided its citizens subsidies for gasoline and public transportation and, for the poor, food staples as well as a type of flat, round bread. Unsubsidized bread can cost 10 to 12 times the subsidized price of less than one cent.

Recently, high food prices and the unavailability of staples such as rice, flour, sugar and cooking oil have led to long lines and waits of hours for the bread, with violence breaking out at some sites in poor neighborhoods. In early March there were riots involving thousands of people, and at least 10 people died.

Beer in Berlin

The Berlin International Beer Festival is held on a 2.2-kilometer stretch of Berlin’s Karl-Marx-Allee. Along with live music on 18 stages, more than 240 breweries from 80 countries will present 1,750 brands of beer, Aug. 1-3, 2008, and Aug. 8-10, 2009.

Admission is free; souvenir beer mugs (6.7 ounces) are sold for €3.50 (near $5) and, when presented at a brewer’s stand, cost €1.5 to fill up.

Contact Praesenta, Ltd. (Köpenickerstrasse 325, 12555 Berlin, Germany; phone 030 657 635 60, www.bierfestival-berlin.de).

Burgundy wine barge

The 6-night cruise “Grand Cru Special” on the 12-passenger barge Napoléon will focus on the 33 wines that come from plots of land certified as Grand Cru (great growth), the highest classification for vineyard land in Burgundy, France.

Guests will take the Eurostar to the TGV express from London to Macon to embark July 20, 2008, cruise the canals and arrive in Dijon July 26, returning to London by train. There will be wine classes, tastings and receptions plus meals from the ship’s Cordon Bleu chef.

Taking the temperature

This month’s winner is LISA ROBERTIELLO of Valencia, California:

During a visit to Ireland in 2000, my husband and I enjoyed overnight accommodations at a working farm in the southwestern area of the country. In the morning, as I assisted the farmer’s wife with clearing the breakfast dishes, we chatted about the differences between our daily lives.

Upon entering her kitchen, I had noticed her oven was several feet away from any wall, which, being used to cooking with gas or electricity, seemed a bit odd to me. Not so for those using peat bricks as fuel.

Wine bus from Santiago

A full-day tour of the wine country around Santiago by Vinobus includes the Maipo Valley; tour/tasting at Pérez Cruz Vineyard; Vineyard Santa Rita; the Andino museum, and Vina Santa Rita wine cellars. Lunch at Dona Paula restaurant is not included in the price.

Tours run daily from 9 a.m.  $50 per person (minimum, three persons). Enotour Chile (A. Luis Thayer Ojeda 0130, Of. 1204, Providencia, Santiago, Chile; phone [56 2] 481 4081, www
enotourchile.com).

French cookery classes

Michelin-starred chef Alain Ducasse, who has cooked for everyone from diners at the Eiffel Tower’s Jules Verne restaurant to ESA astronauts on the International Space Station, has opened a cooking school in Paris for nonprofessionals. Instructors are chefs who trained in Ducasse restaurants. 

One of the classes offers ideas for the use of leftovers. Instruction is in French; the school will provide a translator at extra charge. Half-day course, €165 (near $236). 

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