Cooking Holiday In Rome
Learn about Italian life, past and present, as you enjoy incredible, fresh flavours. You don't have to be a passionate cook to enjoy this experience.

The classes are small so that they can be relaxed and informal. People can have hands on if they want, or they can sit and watch if they prefer. Most people usually do a mixture of both. There is time for questions and discussion during class, and the dishes prepared come from many Italian regions, not just Rome, using the fresh produce in season. A balance is kept between food for dinner parties, and interesting quick dishes to prepare for more informal meals. It is authentic Italian food, based on good ingredients, not fussy designer food.

It is possible to do a 2 or 3 day class or, if you have very limited free time, a 1 day class can sometimes be arranged.

Cooking Holiday In Puglia
Puglia, in the heel of Italy, is a fascinating region, still relatively unspoiled, with great quality food, wine and olive oil. It has many affinities with ancient Greece, and everywhere we see traces of the Romans, who built the great Appian Way, linking Rome to Brindisi, the port that led to Greece and the Middle East.

It is one of the most interesting regions and its remote position in the ‘heel’ has helped to preserve its secrets. Ruined Saracen towers line the coast – remains of an early-warning system against sixteenth-century marauding pirates, and the large, local farmhouses used to hide women, animals and harvested crops behind strong fortifications.

Cooking Holiday On the Amalfi Coast
Naples and the Amalfi coast have thrilled and enchanted visitors since the early days of Rome, when the emperors endured hours of discomfort to arrive at this idyllic place -"campus felix", the happy land. I love this part of Italy and over the years I have discovered small, relatively unknown trattorias where the real local food is lovingly prepared in beautiful settings. This is where we do our cooking.

The course starts in Rome with the lesson/dinner at my home at 8.00 pm Sunday. On Monday morning we will transfer by private bus to Sant'Agata sui due Golfi, a small town between Sorrento and Positano. Sant'Agata is on a hill with fabulous views of the gulfs of Salerno and Naples. Accommodation will be in small 3 star hotels with 1 night in Rome and 5 in Sant'Agata. There is a modest supplement for single use of double room.

Cooking Holiday In Marrakech
Marrakech is magical city. The pink and turquoise walls and buildings shimmer like a mirage and the shady tiled courtyards and gently-splashing fountains soothe the senses. In the Medina the smell of the heaped, exotic spices and grilling meat is all-pervasive and the vibrant colours and perpetual hubbub are almost a physical assault. The city has many moods and we will explore them all, on foot, from a horse-drawn caleche or lolling on the cushions of our rooftop garden. Prepare to be enchanted, and leave lots of space in your suitcase!

Cooking Holiday In Southern India
I fell in love with India many years ago and during the frequent visits I made while researching and writing "Favourite Indian Food" I became spellbound. Since then I have been lured back at regular intervals and this year I set up my first gourmet trip to Goa and Kerala in the South. I will be repeating this in January 2009.

Cooking Holiday on the Greek Island Idyll Sifnos
I have been visiting Greece every year for the last 30 years. I love the simplicity of Greek life and I feel at home with the people. Over the years I have fallen in love with Sifnos, a small island in the Western Cyclades, and every summer I return to have my nerves soothed and my mind healed after the hubbub of life in Rome. On the island the light is very special and the sea is always present.

I stay in Vathi, which is a sleepy cluster of houses on the beach to the south of the island. Vathi has 6 tavernas serving traditional greek food and a charming little Greek Orthodox church, all on the beach. There are only one or two rows of houses and the hills host goats, donkeys and bees. An island bus links Vathy to the small towns of Apollonia and Artemonas, named after the gods, a high Venetian fortress, Kastro and the lively port, Kamares.

Pricing in Euros
Cookery courses in Rome	€1,000 euros for the week, or 200 euros per day 1, 2 and 3 days Courses € 200 euros per day (subject to availability)
Cookery course in Puglia	€1,600 euros for the week
Cookery courses in Amalfi Coast	€2,350 euros for the week
The course includes 6 nights accommodation, all lunches and dinners with local wines, 3 lessons, olive oil discussion and tasting, demonstrations of pizza, limoncello and mozzarella making. Transport in Italy to and from Rome and local visits are included.
Cookery course in Marrakech - 7th to 12th November 2009	€1,800.
Price includes 5 nights, 5 breakfasts and dinners, the classes, transfers and a guided tour. We will shop in the local market, have three cooking classes and explore spices, local herbs and cooking utensils.
Cookery course in Southern India - 23rd January to 5th February 2010	€2,800.
The price includes: 13 nights accommodation with breakfast, 13 meals, 8 cooking lessons, local private bus transfers and outings, guide in Cochin, day and lunch on houseboat.
Different cooking holidays have differing elements included and potentially different additional costs. Upon contacting me I can explain each holiday to you.

Accommodation
Accommodation is included on all cookery holiday courses with the exception of Rome. In Rome, you will find accommodation to suit all tastes and I am happy to offer advice as required.

Tutor
Diane Seed has lived in Rome for 30 years, and she has built up an international reputation for her unrivalled knowledge of Italian regional cuisine and wines. She is an amusing speaker and her passionate enthusiasm and lively anecdotes bring out the sheer pleasure of Italian life. She now lives in a spectacular apartment in the Doria Pamphili palace at Piazza Venezia where she runs a cooking school with views of the Colosseum. Her love affair with Italy shows no sign of fading.

She moved to Rome some time after studying English Literature at London University, and proceeded to teach at an international school for fifteen years while bringing up her three daughters. Her great interest in food and cooking then developed from a hobby into a full-time occupation as she started to write cook books. Her first book, "Top one Hundred Pasta Sauces" has sold well over a million copies and been translated into 12 languages.

Diane now writes for various magazines on these subjects, as well as travelling the world giving lectures, lessons and demonstrations, spreading the knowledge she has acquired over the years rom farms, palazzi, markets,restaurants and family friends.

She loves the far south of Italy, a region generally undiscovered by tourism, where the historic influences of Greece, Spain and the Arab invasions are still reflected in the food. As well as her Roman cooking school she runs classes twice a year on the Amalfi coast, Sicily and Puglia, in the heel of Italy. In the course of her exploration of Mediterranean and Italian food Diane has also acquired expert knowledge of the various olive oils produced. She worked frequently for the International Olive Oil Council, and took part in food promotions all over the world. Diane worked for eight years as the Italian food consultant for Marks and Spencer in the UK, and now spends considerable time helping chefs and suppliers enlarge their repertoire with authentic regional dishes.

In the last two years she has started developing gastronomic tours in those countries she explored while researching her Mediterranean and Indian books.These tours have some cooking but the emphasis is on finding the good food and enjoying the most appealing aspects of these fascinating countries