Planning guides: what is in season, which region to choose, and how to get there.
A flexible 5-day Tuscany food and wine itinerary: two days in Florence for markets, bistecca and a cooking class, a Chianti vineyard day, a day south among the Brunello and Vino Nobile vineyards and the Val d'Orcia, and a fifth for truffles, olive oil or the coast. Suggestions, not a fixed schedule.
A guide to Rome cooking classes: make fresh pasta and the four Roman sauces (carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana, gricia), often after a market shop, plus pizza-and-gelato and market-to-table options.
A loose, food-first three days in Rome: Testaccio market and a food tour, a pasta-making class and a wine tasting, and the Jewish Ghetto's artichokes or a Frascati hills wine day trip, with where to base.
Marsala wine explained: Sicily's fortified wine from gold to ruby and dry to sweet, the English merchants who created it, how to read a label (Fine to Vergine), and visiting the cellars and Trapani salt pans.
A guide to Sicilian sweets: the cannolo and cassata built on ricotta, marzipan frutta martorana, granita with brioche, and the cold-worked chocolate of Modica - what each is and where to taste it.
A guide to Sicily cooking classes: what you cook (arancini, pasta alla Norma, caponata, cannoli, busiate), and where to take one - Palermo, Taormina, Catania and Ortigia - often after a market shop.
What to eat in Catania and eastern Sicily: pasta alla Norma, the La Pescheria fish market, granita with brioche, the volcano-shaped arancino and Bronte pistachios, with Etna wine on the doorstep.
What to eat in Palermo, from arancine, panelle and sfincione to the pane ca' meusa spleen sandwich, plus cannoli and cassata and the Ballarò, Vucciria and Capo markets where the city eats.
A loose, food-first week around Sicily: Palermo street food, Catania and Etna wine in the east, Baroque Ortigia and Noto, and the Marsala wine and salt pans of the west, with where to base and when to go.
What to eat in Santorini: the volcanic produce behind fava (split-pea purée), tomatokeftedes (cherry-tomato fritters), white aubergines and capers, plus fresh seafood and the island's crisp Assyrtiko wine - the dishes to order and where to eat.