During one holiday with family and friends in Umbria in 1995, Maggie Beer and I decided that we must return for a longer stay. On the spot we began to plan some very personal cooking classes. The rest is history and this book records in detail our return to Italy in 1997, the finding of Villa di Corsano in a tiny village near to Siena, the dishes cooked, the places visited, the people who made it all happen, our responses to the glorious landscape, and our enthusiasm. It was an outstanding life experience, never to be repeated. We laugh now about the mountains of luggage, the refrigerator that froze all the food, the three flights of stone steps to be traversed for a cube of ice, the funny stories, the marvellous students, and we wonder how we did it!

The book has been very successful and has been translated into several languages, including Italian.