As soon as I arrive in Maontalcino, I am struck as I always am by the silence of the hills. It surprises me every time. Aside from the occasional barking dog in the distance, or the ancient voices conversing unseen across stone walls in a dialect…

Sitting at JFK waiting for my boarding call! It always seems so far off and then it’s in your face. Started packing at ten past four for a five o’clock pick up in Brooklyn this afternoon, hugging grand kids and helping a house guest from Vermont tie…

These past two weeks have been almost like being there for me, with chef/master baker, Giovanni Maccioni, in Brooklyn on vacation staying with us At Home In Brooklyn.  Giovanni is a 3rd generation baker, and until recently the owner of Pasticceria Mariuccia in Montalcino, which…

If anyone thinks for a moment that life in a Montalcino might get dull, or that such towns sell nothing but wine and local handicrafts, then they have probably never been to Tuscany.  Here, in Montalcino, there is no a lack of cosmopolitan culture, which could not be better…

This is our 4th year of running the retreat in Tuscany.  The biggest problem we’ve faced is finding the balance between trying to provide the broadest possible array of activities that will give people a sense of what life is like in these hills and trying not to overwhelm…