I have received many suggestions from friends that I post about the "cooking school" that I attended in Calabria, Italy this year. Specifically about what a disaster it was and to warn others to beware it is not what it professes to be.
Last year, after many years of not following my own passion but encouraging others and to follow theirs, I made a decision to go to Italy to attend a cooing school. I was truly excited about the curriculum and the teachers/chefs looked great. They were advertised as "masters" in their field and winners of World Cup competitions... I was looking forward learning from true experts. We were to be housed in a fine hotel overlooking the sea in a popular resort town. We had a list of excursions, consultations and meetings with producers, purveyors and artisans to learn deeply about the production and creation of things such as olive oil and gelato. It was touted as a professional development program of the highest caliber.
Instead...
I arrived to a deserted town near Soverato Italy. The hotel, abandoned for the winter, was cold in appearance and in temperature as the building remained unheated for the winter. The hotel, positioned at the top of a tall hill overlooking two bays, had the potential to be fabulous and may have been at one time but years of neglect and seeming indifference have rendered it mostly uninhabitable. Many rooms were closed because of the crumbling hillside. Many toilets, water heaters and room heaters did not function. The foul order of methane caused two members of the student population to become ill, plumbing issues which persisted and involved many student changing rooms repeatedly. No hot water, no water, sewage back ups, I could go on. For many of us the heat did not work properly in our rooms (or at all). The only heated area of the entire hotel was in the classroom and kitchen, the dining area and hotel lobby area remained unheated and frigid. The wifi access was available only in the unheated lobby or outside on the front patio... outside.... in the winter... getting the picture... and was so slow it was almost pointless to use. The resort town of the hotel was empty not really a soul around. Soverato, the nearest functioning town was about 20 min by taxi at a minimum of 15 Euros or over 20 bucks.
I myself was bitten by something in my room that sent me to the hospital. Bugs happen, I know, but I'm painting the full picture of my disappointment.
The first night of the welcome gala was a meal fit for a dive bar, touted as a wonderful display of regional specialities. This was my first pang of fear that this might not be what I had thought or what I was looking for.
