From earth to table Tuscan cooking workshop

01 Sep 2020
By Elizabeth

SEPTEMBER 1 – 3 DALLA TERRA ALLA TAVOLA From Earth to Table


‘Shopping’ for us most of the time means driving into the hills and valleys from one producer to another to choose from the day’s production of cheeses, salami, vegetables, fruits, eggs, wood oven baked bread, olive oil, freshly milled speciality flours. We come home with amazing ingredients and enriched by our chats with the producers. It’s central to our lifestyle, food philosophy and cooking.
We know how lucky we are to be surrounded by these possibilities. We love to be able to give a glimpse and taste of these gastronomic realities to other food enthusiasts.

On the middle day of our two concentrated cooking days we will be taking you on this romping shopping trip in the hills and valleys surrounding us.

For the rest of the time we’ll be doing a lot of cooking, as always based on seasonal ingredients, meats from our fabulous family butcher, and traditional Tuscan recipes. At the end of every day we will prepare a table in the garden to feast on the day’s preparations.

For the past 20 years Elizabeth has been cooking and eating her way around the kitchens of Tuscany’s mamma’s and nonna’s, gleaning the secrets of this mythical culinary heritage.

Since packing up her London life, her Tuscan food quest has led her on all sorts of unexpected adventures. Most recently, and in the face of tough competition from Tuscan born chefs, Elizabeth was invited to Toronto Canada to represent Tuscan cuisine and hold a master class with effervescent young international chefs.

To complete her ‘Tuscan Dream’, her Florentine husband whom she met in the skies between Florence and London, shares this passion. Growing up in a Florentine family with three women dedicated full-time to the preparation of family meals, sowed the seeds of his extensive culinary heritage. Together they have cooked, hiked, biked and roamed, up and down the hills and valleys of Tuscany in search of pastures and plots of off-the-beaten-track artisan growers and producers at the heart of the Tuscan table.

Several years ago Elizabeth and Marco gave in to the call of this hobby central to their Tuscan country lifestyle, putting aside their separate professions to open a small restaurant in the garden of their 15th century watermill home in Tuscany near Florence, which in the meantime they had found, bought and restored, where they give free reign to what they call their ‘lifestyle cooking’. Here they share their experiences with other food and wine enthusiasts. Doggedly going against the flow of growth, expansion and profit in response to success and awards, they stick fast to their philosophy of a totally home-made traditional Tuscan menu, favouring local growers and producers of fresh, seasonal and traditional food and ingredients. Dining in the restaurant on a 35km menu is a culinary romp around the places of the people who produce.

Participating in their Tuscan cooking classes is equivalent to dipping into their lifestyle.

Their Tuscan Cooking Classes began initially with the encouragement of the local ladies who started Elizabeth on this adventure, followed later by the request of Italians who came to eat in their ‘lifestyle restaurant’. Discovering the joys of cooking with like-minded enthusiasts from all walks of life and all corners of the globe, opened the doors to a whole new exciting chapter.

People are attracted who love to cook and to eat, who love Tuscany, its incredible natural produce, its wines, the countryside, the art, architecture and history of this cradle of culture; people who love to cook and eat all day, to talk about food and culinary traditions, often with a glass of Chianti in one hand and a spatula in the other while Marco chats about the origins of traditional dishes and the art and history of Florence; people who want to prepare as many dishes as possible; others who prefer to cook and eat all day, then climb into the jeep to drive into the hills to visit a cheese maker, hunt for truffles, or sample the region’s famed wines and olive oil, then come home, cook some more, take a dip in the pool, feast, relax infront of the log fire with a glass of wine and a coffee; people who want to do all of this in a home where history, tradition, art, food, wine and beauty are a natural part of the owner’s lifestyle.

The house motto says it all, ‘Cucinare è Voler Bene’ – ‘To Cook is To Love’.

‘Casa Ceri’ refers to Marco’s Florentine family history which dates back to 15th century Florence.

The logo is inspired by the Casa Ceri coat of arms

logo casa ceri

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