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.
The first two weeks were interesting and John Nocita the owner/ head chef displayed a knowledge that showed that he, at some point in his career, had a passion for this cuisine and for teaching about out it. We tasted many things which was fun but that is about where the main education and good treatment ended. To summarize, we did not have any guest chefs, we missed our excursions, we did not get to eat things we labored over for days, including homemade marmelata. A product we created through diligent work, we peeled and sectioned over 150 kilos of oranges FOR 2 DAYS and were told we would not get any to eat, especially "not to put on the crap we eat at breakfast" a direct quote from Chef John. This "crap" we ate at breakfast is the breakfast HE provided as part of our "gourmet" meals/food. Our meals were primarily pasta, pasta many times served with broccoli sauce, a sauce make by cooking the hell out of the cheapest thing that was a the market until it fell apart and turned into mush and tossing that with pasta. et voila, dinner. Bread was reheated and reserved for 3-4 days straight. The wine cost about 1 euro at the store in town, and was limited. After spending oh, 8 hours hand chopping fresh pork meat for sausages, chef John carelessly overcooked and didn't aid or teach other students to properly cook the many sausages they worked so hard to prepare, the sausages were ruined. Then, the ones we made properly- disappeared. We never ate them, never saw them again as was such for all of the conserves we made. It was as if we had paid to be treated badly, and work hard to make artisan foodstuffs that were probably sold or traded for …. who knows.
The chef and his girlfriend / co chef were condescending and he was verbally abusive in his treatment of the group. He threw things, carelessly flipped knives around and had tantrums. He frequently mentioned that he doesn't hurt or kill things any more. Nice. His behavior was unpredictable and unprofessional at times. It would appear that after realizing this, he would switch and would try to kiss and make up especially with certain members of the group. Another student referred to him as primitive and a classless thug. We payed money to be at a school that teaches and uplifts our creative passions not one that destroys our very confidence to even enter the kitchen.
I feel like John had once been passionate about Italian cuisine and somewhere in financial trouble or personality disorder has begun to see the students as money not as people he would like to help reach their potential... Confidences worn down, hope crushed, this was not a profession school, it is not what it professes to be. It may be very entertaining for some and at times was for me... but it is not what it professed to be.
I left early after several incidents that felt unsafe, too unprofessional and bold faced lies. One incident included John and another student arguing and nearly coming to blows. As this was happening, a group of us were held in the kitchen with the door closed and asked not to go out. There were several people who would have been capable of assisting these two come down from this argument rather than allowing it to escalate, many of us were actual adults. A student called the police and 4 of use decided to leave. I have respectfully asked for a refund and have been denied and insulted in the email that responded to my request. This is not the teacher for young impressionable kids, like the 20 somethings that attended. It feels like a con job, I think it was a con job. A beat you down until you believe this guy is your ticket to a career or something only he can give you. Or a buttering up that feels like buying a used car.
Instead, check into the many other opportunities in an actual kitchen, research food with the families of italy, read a good book on regional cuisine and take a month to travel. That's my two cents, for what it's worth, everyone has an opinion and this was mine.
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