It's impossible to describe our part of Italy without mentioning the olive tree, first sentence. It drives the cuisine, it provided the light for generations. Here, wooden spoons and rolling pins are made out of the olive tree's wood here in the Salento. As are our church doors. Prunings still fill fireplaces and outdoor grills, flavouring our food yet again. The olive tree is everything you see here, up there with the cobalt sky and the red, red earth.

So it's only fitting that it was our little school in Puglia that created Italy's first real olive oil course.

Check out our site.
We've created a new pull down menu dedicated to all things olives. (It's the middle menu).

You'll find out why that Extra Virgin Olive Oil you bought at the super market isn't really Italian. It might not even be wholly from olives. And it is really extra virgin? Chances are against it. Doubt it? Read on.

The Human Side.

What To do About it

To find out how extra virgin olive oil is actually made, click here.

To see our revolving gallery of some of my favourite olive tree pictures, click here.

Can you spot me up the tree, receiving my first lesson in pruning? When your instructor tells you, 'So that a sparrow can pass among the branches without touching its wings', just try not to have the same dumb look on your face that I did.

(Using animals as measurement is only one of many folksy ways of thinking that I've picked up since I started working these trees myself)

To read more of our spring course, click here.

To read more about our Autumn course where you'll actually pick olives, press them and you take some of the oil home with you, but only after we enter it into competition, right along aside that of other locals, click here.

It's been a long, hard road getting our programmes up and off the ground, a true labour of love. We'd be tickled to have you come play a part this year.

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Già da cinque anni, The Awaiting Table Cookery School è una scuola di cucina salentina, situata nel centro storico di Lecce. Il proprietario, dott. Silvestro Silvestori, promuove i vini (solo di uve autoctone), i prodotti tipici e la cultura del Mezzogiorno sul mercato anglofono. Lo scopo è quello di aprire nuovi canali commerciali facendo da ponte tra il sud ed il resto del mondo, al fine di superare le barriere linguistiche e culturali. Per incentivare questa politica di promozione, Silvestro punta sul miglioramento qualitativo della produzione nostrana affinchè possa essere autenticamente concorrenziale, cercando di coinvolgere i produttori locali, poichè si sa: "l'unione fa la forza!". Entro il 2009, Silvestro inaugurerà una nuova scuola per promuovere i vini e le uve di tutto il sud (la Puglia, la Sicilia, la Basilicata e la Calabria). Per maggiori informazioni potete scrivere allo stesso indirizzo e- mail.

For booking information click here.

For our calendar click here.

To learn more about our up and coming wine school click here.

To read my wine blog click here.