A Westie Maitre De and Cooking School with Frannie

Buono sera Foodies, 

After swanning around Capri in my less than chi chi Katmando gear we headed for a local dinner @ Cafe Positano. A rip off  with schmick waiters and all but close to home and no bloody stairs. But their speciality was not their pesce nor their insalade but the fact that they had a resident West Highland White Terrier who was their unofficial maitre d'e.

"Carmen" - mother of Whisky, was the talisman of this eating establishment. She was the most chi chi Westie with the best coiffure and attitude this side of Milano. The mad undisciplined traffic of the narrow streets of Positano was of no consequence to this queen of cool. She meandered tables and traffic with aplomb even though Siobhan and I were sick too our stomachs watching her. It made us miss our babies marginally less.... Grazie Carmen. 

It's Thursday and we head to Ravello for the cooking class that we had booked. And Travellers, can I just say one thing, If you find yourself in this region the please in the most heartfelt bespoke words of Molly Meldrum, do yourself a favor and do this course. 

When we arrive at Amalfi, not sure how to get where we need to be , a sleaze bucket taxi driver tries to get us to spend 40€ for a 10min taxi ride. We say Managgia la miseria - damn this misery and head to the local bus stop. We arrive in Ravello. We have a bit of a walk - we ask a local copper and as is the way of Italians....... Everything is just tin minutes. Fortunately for us in this case it was. We arrive at a place that we begin to start what is one of my most memorable experiences.........

"Ah Killy and Shivon" I was starting to get most worried about you..............

This was our welcome to one of the most wonderful days thus far and spoken by the most wonderful woman you will ever have the pleasure to meet. Her name is Chiara and with her mother "Mama Agatta", runs the best day that 200€ ever spent. 

In the hilltop of Ravello, over looking the Mediterranean sea, her family's farm which is some 250 years old, she runs a cooking school. Her mother started cooking for a rich American ôwomen back in the late 50's early 60's. This woman, Mama Agatta, cooked for Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Jacqueline Kennedy, Fred Astaire amongst others, when visiting the Mediterranean was all the go. Her family life was tough about 20 years ago and Chiara , the daughter, thought that her mum had something to offer. So she harnessed this experience and the cooking school came into being. 

The day began with an avalanche of Australians. Fiona and Sam from Sydney, Jane and Kristen from Melbourne, and us and then Peggy and Dino from Chicago, and finally Brendan and "call me Suzanne not Susan, from London". 

It was a veritable feast of the senses as we learnt from Mama , a formidable 70 year old and her effervescent daughter Chiara, the intricacies of teasing garlic, olive oil, searing and marrying ingredients into a true marriage to produce some eight dishes that we then got to enjoy. But interspersed with that was some of the best laughs, sensory pleasures and flat out enjoyment you will ever get the opportunity to experience. 

For those of you that know me, you may have also had the pleasure of meeting one of the wickedest, funniest ladies that ever graced this earth. Her name was Sue Saunders, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, she went under the name of Frannie. Frannie died of cancer probably more than two years ago now. In her prime, there was none more scintillatingly scathing in her observations nor one more ready to say what others wouldn't or couldn't have the chutzpah to say. 

Well imagine my surprise, when Frannie reincarnate walked into our cooking school this mild day in Ravello! She was the mate of sisters Jane and Kristen from Melbourne, her name is Trish but people call her Poss, and she doesnt do cooking, only eating, hence her late arrival. 

She proceeded to totally dumbfound the Americans, who thought she was hilarious but didn't quite actually know why! She horrified and mortified the Londoners though GoD knows they were way too polite to admit it. And Siobhan and I were just entranced by the wit of this woman in much the same was I had always been by Frannie. She is quite simply a cack and you are never going believe this readers, but she lives around the corner from us in Thornbury!!!!!!!! Aaaaaggggghhhhhh! How spooky is that. 

Beyond a doubt,one of the best people focused traveling days you experience.we are stuffed full to the brim and it will stay with us forever. We cannot recommend it enough if you find yourself in area. Chiara,her mother and the team make it a mind blowing experience. If you can find a ballsy, articulate, irreverent and caustic Australian to add to the mix,all the better.

Bon appetitto 

Kelly & Siobhan



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