Acquacotta giveaway + new workshops and events!

I have been busy preparing and organising some new, exciting things, from cooking classes to a workshop in beautiful Puglia in southern Italy, even a little online shop of limited edition goodies (coming soon now open!)! I’ve decided to put it all in a blog post to have in one place. And to celebrate, I’ve also got some copies of my new cookbook, Acquacotta, to giveaway to five lucky (Australia-based) readers! (Would you like a sneak peek? There is a collection of favourite recipes here on Cooked). Read on for more.

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Events:

Rome, Saturday 17 June, 2017 — Acquacotta Cooking Class

Join me at the Latteria Studio, a bright, wonderful, intimate cooking space in Trastevere, where we will prepare and cook together some favourite summery, Maremman recipes from my new cookbook (such as the handrolled strozzapreti below, a bright salad from Giglio Island, seafood stew and melon granita) around a table like old friends. Lunch (our masterpieces) will follow. The class and lunch cost 100 euro ($140 Australian dollars). Very limited spots — book here.

Florence, Thursday 22 June, 2017 — Florentine & Acquacotta Florence launch

Betty Soldi and Matteo Perduca, the charming and dynamic duo behind Soprarno Suites, Adastra, And Company and Sottarno, a charming new cafe in Florence’s Santo Spirito area, are hosting an author talk with nibbles inspired by my cookbooks, Florentine & Acquacotta. The evening will start with a glass of wine and involve a conversation with me & Matteo about Florentine and Tuscan food traditions and end with mingling and eating. More information for booking coming soon.

Tuscany, 6 July, 2017 — A summer evening with Tessa Kiros & Emiko Davies

Join me and my cookbook hero, Tessa Kiros, for an intimate and casual chat about cookbook writing, travel and the food it leads us to, in the magical garden of Canto Del Maggio, in Tuscany’s Valdarno valley (between Florence and Arezzo). A buffet around the pool, with drinks, will feature recipes out of our latest cookbooks. Tickets 30 euro. For bookings, contact Simona Quirini+39 339 26416 72 or simoqui@me.com

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Workshops:

I’m very excited to be working on several wonderful projects coming up this year with some very inspiring, creative colleagues — more details to follow very soon with their own dedicated blog posts, but if you are thinking of being in Florence or Puglia in October 2017 and want to eat, explore, create, and be inspired with like-minded people, keep an eye out here for more details by the end of the month!

Pictured throughout this post are images from an Acquacotta inspired one-day workshop I did with the amazing Sophie Hansen of Local is Lovely in her hometown, Orange in country New South Wales. We were based at The Old Convent, run by Josie Chapman, where we cooked, styled, photographed and talked about how to create stories, recipes and how to connect on social media channels with an enthusiastic group of 15 people.

We started with an introduction over coffee, visited a beautiful fruit orchard where we had morning tea with treats from my cookbook under the dappled light of fig trees and picked apples, then we had a delicious lunch prepared by Josie (wow, I could eat her food all day every day), and afterwards we dove into some recipe demonstrations, shooting and styling, in smaller groups. There was an hour at the end of the workshop for another coffee, some homemade biscotti made from my cookbook and a Q&A.

Keep your eyes peeled on my events page for more things like this! And Sophie’s excellent line up of workshops can be found here.

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Now, to the exciting part!

Giveaway:

So much love went into the making of my latest cookbook, Acquacotta, which tells the stories behind the cuisine of an under-discovered part of southern Tuscany, a corner of the wild and rugged Maremma (here is a post on the “behind the scenes” of the making of it).

I’d love to share some of this love by giving away five copies of my cookbook to some lucky readers (sorry but this is only open to Australian residents at this time!). All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post saying where in the world you’d love to be transported to just to eat the food for a day!

You have until midnight, June 3rd to enter, I will announce winners here and on instagram on June 5th, 2017!

Acquacotta cookbook

Comments

  1. Lorenzo D'Ambrosio says:

    Oh my gosh, if I could go back anywhere it would be to the Osteria delle Tre Panche in Firenze! A totally charming and tiny local eatery which seats probably max 10 people on three tables! After a hectic taxi ride it was an oasis of buon cibo for two sore footed and famished travellers. The hosts were welcoming e molto simpatico! When we asked what was the best dish he said everything and went about ordering for us! Putting up with our broken Italian and regaling is with funny stories we ended up being brought an amazing selection of delicious food over the course of the afternoon. I haven’t had better in Italy! Even as we were leaving, stomachs full, il conto settled, our host pushed a bottle of the local red on us! On the house he said and Buona Fortuna!
    I loved it then, would love to go back, and regardless love your books and your cooking!
    Grazie Mille
    Lorenzo D’Ambrosio

  2. Michelle says:

    Oh what a marvellous Italian tour! And a date with Tess’s Kirod no less! I’ll be in Sicily in June when you’re in Rome, I’ll wave hello from my plane as I fly to Palermo.
    But if I could go anywhere in the world to eat for the day, it would be to Sweden to eat at Fäviken.

  3. Skye Beker says:

    I would like to be transported to Israel for a day, not only to eat hummus in its finest form, but to eat my grandmother’s culinary delights. My grandmother is Iraqi-Israeli and her cooking is a blend of her roots with all of the other cultural influences that reside within Israels borders. Moroccan cous cous, Georgian stuffed cheese breads, Iraqi dumplings, Polish borscht, the list goes on and on. And I can’t forget her incredible home baked sourdough bread that she slathers with a paste made from roasted nuts, date syrup and tahini which she calls “her breakfast”. I love the connections and memories we make through food and although I miss her presence everyday, and every time I recreate one of her dishes in my Perth kitchen I feel that I am giving her a hug from afar.

  4. Sophie says:

    I would love to be transported to Greece! Preferably in a Yia Yia’s kitchen.

  5. Mavis says:

    Thanks Emiko for the lovely giveaway! The photos are breathtaking! If I could be transported to anywhere in the world to eat for a whole day, I would probably chose Japan! So many different types of dishes from fresh sushi and sashimi to heart warming ramen dishes (not to mention their cakes and desserts, oh my!)…I also really like the fact that they respect and handle their produce with utmost care.

  6. Maria says:

    I would love to escape the cold and be in Siracusa and eat granita alla mandorla con brioche! Then for a walk thtough Ortygia and enjoy the beauty…..

  7. It would be wonderful if Emiko’s kitchen could come all the way to Cambridge (England)! A copy of Acquacotta has already gone to London to excite some grey city’s shelves of a suburb house…a corner of Tuscany travelling to England!
    Thank you Emiko for your wonderful dedication and passion for what you do – I love the section about mushrooms with the drawings of the different varieties!
    Love
    Francesca

  8. Melissa says:

    What a delicious delight to dream of a day transported to the cinque Terre
    I would spend my day dipping my toes in the harbour at Riomaggiore
    And eat the freshest anchovies and crisp fried seafood whilst sipping on the local wine
    An afternoon siesta under a lemon tree, a little walk, a quick sketch and then time for more food and romance
    Wandering the villages in search of the best aperitivo and soulful music …
    ah I am in heaven

  9. kate says:

    Oh, give me a day in Scotland and my heart would be a happy one. Homemade crumpets and scones, freshly caught fish and pots of mussels, wild venison, greens as dark as the hills and a nip of something warming to sip beside the hearth. And a ramble through the highlands to work it all off, perhaps arm in arm with a certain someone*.

    *Preferably wearing his family tartan 😉

  10. Sophie says:

    The dream would be to be transported to San Sebastian for the day, to eat tapas all day, and stuff myself silly on anchovies, salt cod, and spider crab. Plus, the Spanish wine is nothing to sniff at!

  11. Marlene says:

    If I could be transported anywhere it would be to a small town in Puglia called Ceglie Messapica. My husband and two kids and I stayed there in a beautiful Masseria which was surrounded by fig and almond trees. The lovely italian caretaker made us a beautiful pizza for our arrival after a long drive from Rome. It was very simple, just tomato sauce, cheese and basil. It tasted so, so good. She just left it in the kitchen for us with other lovely local produce.

  12. Catherine says:

    Napoli! Always Napoli! For sfogliatella and pizza and spaghetti cooked with seafood pulled in off the boats that morning. Vesuvius and lemon groves, olives and anchovies – that is pretty much the dream!

  13. Anja Vecchi says:

    It would be hard to pick one place only but high up on my list is Krakow, Poland. So many warm delicious things to eat and drink – hot apple vodka, poppy seed pastries, cheesecakes, stuffed cabbage leaves(Gołąbki), pierogi, jam doughnuts (Pączki), kebabs, flavoured hot chocolates – The cafes within the medieval historical centre are so quirky and the Jewish quarter called Kazimierz was full of good food!

  14. I would love to go and spend a day eating in the birthplace of my parents. There I would eat polenta, bollito misto and tiramisu. Can you guess where it is Emiko? Treviso of course.

  15. Was a generous gesture to give away your book that you have undoubtedly worked so hard to make. I would like to go back to my grandparents farm and have them both sitting at the table. No where exotic just a little town in the hunter valley surrounded by mountains. My grandfathers freshly caught fish blackened under the grill and my grandmother’s Peach dumplings. That’s it x

  16. Daniella says:

    I would love to be transported back to my Zia Algengia’s house in Arezzo. Zio Pasquale and I would spend the morning in the forrest collecting porcini, while Zia would be busy preparing her famous cinghiale. We would sit down for a long lazy lunch with my dear cousins, drinking chianti, and gorging ourselves on Zia’s incredible cooking. Ahh it seems so far away from little old Adelaide!!!

  17. CK says:

    Thank you for this giveaway. I would love to be able to sample the regional cuisine of northern Italy and to learn how to cook better.

  18. Hi Emiko,
    Italy seems to feature highly on everyone’s list and it’s on mine as well. More than 10 years ago I visited Sicily and was blown away by the markets and the food there, so simple but tasty. I’m not much of a seafood eater but wading through fish guts and sea water to reach a restaurant inside the fish market at Catania to eat sea urchin pasta is an experience I’ll never forget. The pasta was magnificent! Thanks so much for your generous gift, Jillian

  19. Rebecca Abernethy says:

    I would definitely choose the tiny village of Pompeano di Serramazzoni in Emilia-Romagna. My husband is from Modena and whenever we go back to visit his parents we make sure we go there, buonissimo! And the views are amazing!

  20. Laura Matthew says:

    I can’t believe I have only just discovered you on IG, I must have been living under a rock! Now where would I wish to be transported to for one day to eat is actually quite tough to answer! Especially when you love to eat as much as I do but I think it would have to be San Francisco for no other reason than to visit Tartine and stuff my face with morning buns and amazing sourdough. Delish! X

  21. Alison says:

    Such a hard decision! Japan or Italy? Have been so lucky to have travelled and eaten through both! Given that I am lucky enough to be taking my family to Japan for the first time next year … the winner has to be Italy! I won’t be back there until 2019! My first taste of homemade pastiera in a family owned restaurant just outside the walls of Pompeii … bliss!

  22. Abbie Melle says:

    Ohhh!! I would love to spend a day in England, in a tiny village pub, tucking into their classic Sunday roast with lashings of gravy and massive Yorkshire puddings … followed by a walk through the fields …. oh bliss.

  23. Lucy Wise says:

    I would go to Adelfia, just outside of Bari, Puglia where my Nonna Guiseppina’s sister lives. When I visit she always prepares a plate of Fior Di latte and Mozzarella di buffala, served with salt, pepper & olive oil, plain and simple followed by orrichette with come di rape. Nothing compares.

  24. Jeannie guy says:

    I would love to go back to Italy my fathers birthplace, anywhere in and around Venezia sipping a Spritz and eating seafood finishing off with a digestivo

  25. Laura Jones says:

    If I could be pulled through space to anywhere in the world, I’d hope it would be to Paris. A cliche, perhaps, but only because the fresh baguettes, the oozing cheeses, a steak tartare on the street side table of a bistro with a cheap vin de table are too good to pass up (I’ll leave the accompanying cigarette as a memory of my 19-year-old self, however!).

  26. Chrissy says:

    Yes please! I’d love to eat all the foods Thailand for a day. I love the stinky fermented crab salads, sour paw paw and green mango dishes and the kick from everything CHILLI! Banana roti crusted with sugar and sticky rice with mango and coconut for dessert. For me, this is heaven.

  27. Georgia says:

    I’m from Tasmania, Australia and although I love my little isle and the beautiful food it produces, there’s nothing I’d love more than to while away my time cooking in Italy. I’ve never been to Italy but my grandmother has told me so many stories about beautiful cookery classes she did in Tuscany. She’s always said the food she cooked there had some lovely, additional ‘flavour’ that she’s never been able to reproduce since. I hope you’ll keep running classes in Italy Emiko, I can’t wait to come one day.

  28. Olivia says:

    After living in Italy (Roma) these past 2 years, but now back in rural Victoria, I would love to be transported back to Italy for a meal.. A dripping ball of fresh mozzarella di bufala, a sweet Tuscan pomodoro, a perfect bowl of pasta served up by a lovely nonna by the piazza in my old roman neighbourhood.. Your recent posts have also brought to mind past memories of adventurous weekends spent in Maremma, galloping across fields on those gorgeously strong locally bred horses, past herds of the mighty (giant!) horned maremma cows, as we headed for the coast to drink in the sea air.. On route back to Roma we would stop at the beach and order the most delicious pasta (I’m not sure the name of the dish), but it came with and muscles & clams and tartufo all together in perfect harmony… ahhh… yes, that’s where you can find me…

  29. Tula Wynyard says:

    Tokyo! To wander through the markets and try the day’s fresh seafood, prepared so simply. And maybe to stop for mochi and a matcha latte for something sweet. And the beautiful bento boxes full of so much flavour… there’s too much to choose from!

  30. Judy says:

    Singapore! I missed the Kaya toast with half boiled egg and teh si for breakfast, laksa, hokkien mee for lunch and char kway teow with sambal stingray for dinner. :’) too much to eat, too little time…

  31. Olivia says:

    I am on vacation in Chianti right now and never want to leave the food is just so good! If I could be transported to anywhere else right now I would pick the Maremma- the food you wrote about in the gourmet traveller sounds so delicious and I have added it to my travel list for next time I am in Europe!

  32. Laura Donaldson says:

    Ah such a tough question as there are so so many places I want to devour, I mean, visit.
    Currently, it would be amazing to escape the cold here in Aus & escape to the Amalfi Coast I have recently seen many photos of. Ideally I would be sitting back and enjoying a big bowl of ravioli overlooking the picturesque Positano at sunset. A girl can dream, right?

  33. Laura S says:

    If only I lived in Australia so I had a chance for this beautiful cookbook. I would love to visit anywhere with amazing pasta, so Italy us high on the list definitely!

  34. Jen says:

    Transport me to New Zealand to my friend Diane’s kitchen in Days Bay. What is good food without good people to eat, drink and enjoy the view with. NZ has some of the most amazing fresh produce in the world to create with.

  35. I adore Italy. I adore even more Puccini. I would love to be transported to Toro Del Lago for the beautiful local cuisine accompanied by the fabulous music of the Puccini Festival. This would make my heart sing. Thank you for your wonderful books and this opportunity. I am 73 and this would be a journey of a lifetime with my darling husband.

  36. Cameron Edinger-Reeve says:

    The only place I want to go to eat is home, near the beach South of Sydney. I spend 9 months of the year in a remote mining town high on the mountains where the good food is hard to come by, it rains daily and the sun and sky make rare appearances….so I grow my own basil, parsley and tomatoes which go well with the pasta I make. If I want to eat anything that isnt deep fried and covered in chilli I have to make it or grow it, the sunlight is so weak my garden is under hydroponic lights…yet I grow everything from seed so I when I go back home in spend hours at the supermarket or growers market. It makes me realise that most people don’t realise how lucky they are to get access to good safe food. So I am happy going to Coles with a coffee and taking as long as it takes to peruse the produce and just buy 3 things. Life is too short for bad food.

  37. Julie says:

    Lucern, Switzerland. That was I could dabble in German, French and Italian cuisine. How can you go wrong with cheese and chocolate!

  38. Isa says:

    There is a place in the middle of the Keralese rainforest. A spice plantation. Colonial splendour of colonial times long gone, yet still leaving a slightly bitter aftertaste when going for a walk after lunch and watching the well-educated, kind and poor locals stripping pepper berries off lianas or picking pineapple. What a lunch that was! Three different kinds of home-baked breads- fluffy coconutty rice flour pancakes, paper-thin crusty pappadams, buttery parottas. To be dipped into fantastic concoctions of flavour, spice and colour- root vegetable curry with fresh curry leaves picked minutes ago from the spice garden next door, sauces oozing with richness and intensity, more mouth-watering dishes of exotic yet familiar tasting Keralese mysteries. All shared amongst the clatter and chatter of friends scooping up food with bare hands: pure, real, skin-close and heart-filling enjoyment!

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