From the New York Post, October 19, 1999, page 56.

Highlights from "Making Gnocchi" by Bobbie Leigh:

Although once duhbed by an Italian magazine as "the least expensive cooking school in Italy," Toscana Saporita has an aura of elegance and sophistication from its location - a 17th-century estate about a 30-minute drive north of Pisa and close to the port town of Viareggio - and its cast of characters. They are right out of a Fellini movie - a contessa, a baron, a marquesa and endearing master teachers. "I want everybody who comes to our school to love Tuscany, to love the food and to be able to cook whatever we do here at home," says the ebullient Sandra Lotti.

During my week at their cooking school last summer, our class of eight bonded quickly and relished the easy-going classes where presentation was stressed as much as preparation. We learned to make radish roses and create vegetable centerpieces worthy of the outstanding dishes at our al fresco lunches in the villa's garden.

[The people:]

Lotti, with her American-born cousin, Anne Bianchi, runs a cooking school like no other. They have been cooking together since they were bambini and recently collaborated on "Dolci Toscani, the Book of Tuscan Desserts."

The cooking school cast of characters are so simpatico and the setting amid 10,000 olive trees so restorative that students often extend their stay.

The tour leader is Betty, who cooks in her mother's restaurant at night, heads up the local tourist office and is an earnest instructor on the glories of Tuscany.

When the group returns, usually around 7 p.m., the handsome Claudio, a movie projectionist in the nearby port town of Viareggio, whisks her off, blond hair streaming behind her, on his motorbike.

[The food:]

After the cooking sessions, a long table is set in the garden and the morning's efforts - perhaps a carrot bisque with porcini mushrooms, gnocchi, grilled veggies, warm pear and arugula salad and cappucino gelato (made with heavy cream and egg yolks) crowned with bittersweet chocolate sauce - are served along with two or three wines.

At dinner we sat at a long table in a high-ceilinged room with the original terracotta decorated with 18th-century, six-foot-high family portraits of severe looking Tuscans in costumes right out of Romeo and Juliet.

This was a gala affair with several wines and stellar dishes - porcini mushroom risotto, grilled calamari salad, tomato and basil tarts, eggplant parmesan, and a sensational sea bass and vegetables in parchment.

Desserts ranged from panna cotta, puddings, and cakes to tira misu, apple tart, carmelized pears and almond and orange biscotti - followed by chocolate coconut truffles, grappa, brandy, and limoncello (pure alcohol, sugar, and lemons) which the contessa makes with organically grown lemons from her garden.