The Mexican Winters
Escaping freezing Firenze for winter vacations. Each trip enhances your flavor palate and life experiences. Travel has been my education.
Welcome to my eighth monthly post of my culinary memoir:
Simply Divina: Becoming Italian One Recipe At A Time.
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Each month I post a newsletter open for everyone. For the paid subscribers this year, I am posting a memoir post and then one on the Italian Pantry and a post of my mentors. It takes a village to really go deep into a new culture and make it home.
You are what you eat.
The more you travel, the more you open your palate to new flavors and your mind to more cultures. Every trip has made me the cook I am today.
When I opened my cooking school in downtown Florence, my students were all on study abroad programs here in Italy. I adapted my schedule to their schedule. The program I created for them was a four-week program, and then there would be a break, and I would offer another session.
There would be a longer break between semesters. Unlike Italians, who get four weeks of paid vacation ( with weekends, etc., it becomes five weeks), almost everyone takes the month of August off and a week in winter to go skiing or at Easter time.
It worked out for me and my husband to take off time in winter as it was a longer break. Andrea was passionate about Mayan history, so Mexico was a natural choice for us.
When I worked in San Francisco, I alternated my longer European vacations with fun short vacations in Mexico with my girlfriends. First, I visited the Baja peninsula, then Puerta Vallarta and Mazatlan. It was beach time!
In winter, tourism dies down in Florence; it’s cold and expensive to heat the house. Mexico was the perfect getaway.
There are perks to being self-employed. We took advantage of our downtime to travel.