THE one event in Amalfi that I was most excited about ever since we started planning the trip was our day at Mama Agata’s.
It was a cooking demonstration, no actual cooking from the “guests” but lessons nonetheless from a woman who had cooked for some pretty famous people back in the day. I’m talking folks like Jackie Kennedy (a truly classy woman according to Mama) and Fred Astaire (picky eater, much too thin and always dancing around). Those little asides were provided by Mama’s daughter, Chiara, the marketing genius who has built a local goldmine around her Mama. Chiara has authored prize winning cookbooks, been on international cooking shows and hosts these days at Mama’s all year except August when they put up the tomatoes and other bounty from their gardens. To of course sell to their addicted customers. She is a dynamic communicator and terrific business women. What a delight and what stories, especially her story of touring Martha Stewart’s enterprize and meeting with Martha to be told that double zero flour introduced to her by Chiara had “changed her life”.
Chiara with Mama
She had saved the family home on the hillside just outside Ravello by marketing her Mama. Jokes about selling your mother, go for it, you’re on your own.
She sent instructions to not eat breakfast, she would start us with cappuccino and lemon cake, and recommended that we not make dinner plans. Genius, this women is genius. Anybody not interested in food porn should just stop reading now, because it’s on. We’re talking eggplant parmigiana, fritters with salami and zucchini blossoms, two different pasta dishes, lemon chicken like butter and lemon cake with house made limoncello. All in an environment to die for…14 terraces of lemon trees, vegetable gardens and an aviary with pet fowls overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Add perfect weather and when our ride came to pick us up at 4:45 we didn’t want to leave. A perfect day in paradise.
