A Year in a Tuscan Cooking School: October

The new olive oil, chestnuts, and a table full of squash

Ciao and welcome to the tenth chapter of A year in a Tuscan Cooking School. Each month, I open the doors of my cooking school to share a more intimate glimpse into daily life in Tuscany: its flavours, its people, and the gentle rhythm of the seasons. It’s a slow journey, like leafing through the pages of a favourite cookbook.

If you’re new to the series, catch up on what we’ve been cooking through the year — from hearty January soups to the recipes for the in between season of September — right here: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.

October and its walks

OCTOBER

This newsletter about October in our Tuscan Cooking School reaches you well into November, which rather says it all about how busy, joyful, and utterly exhausting the past month has been.

So, even though the calendar has turned, I wanted to take a moment to share the whirlwind that was October, the final chapter of our high season, which began back in April. It’s a time when classes resume at full speed, but also when life gradually settles into a more familiar rhythm: early morning school drop-offs, afternoons filled with Livia’s activities (music, English, and gym), the start of new projects, and the first thoughts of the year ahead.

We spent a couple of days in Florence filming some videos — you’ll see the results next week — and celebrated Tommaso’s fortieth birthday. This involved a lot of baking, including a giant chocolate cake which inspired another recipe I’ll be sharing in December.

We also picked our olives and pressed them, bringing home our bright green extra virgin olive oil: slightly bitter, decidedly peppery, and just as it should be. The best kind. I planted my spring bulbs in the ground, a hopeful gesture in a season when daylight shortens and leaves fall in great showers from the trees, baring their branches to the gusty wind. We may be striding towards winter, but in my mind, I’m already tending my spring garden.

October cooking classes

As the weather returned to its usual autumn chill, we found even more joy in retreating to the kitchen and browsing the market stalls for new seasonal treasures.

In October, we welcomed 90 guests, mostly from the US, with one lovely visitor from Canada, and a couple all the way from the Netherlands.

Alongside our regular schedule of one-day experiences, we hosted a special class in Florence with Brooke Eliason from Female Foodie, as part of her women-only tours of Tuscany. We’ve been collaborating with Brooke for two years now, we have already classes with her scheduled for 2026, and once again, this class was one of the highlights of our teaching season.

Here’s what we managed to cook together in just three hours, with plenty of helping hands, and everything made from scratch (apart from the beans!). I dare say we did a rather good job!

• Autumn panzanella salad, with squash, fennel, carrots, celery, olives, capers and onion

• Bruschetta with cannellini beans and olio nuovo, the freshly pressed olive oil

• Chestnut flour pasta with sausage and gorgonzola sauce

• Pork loin with apples

• Tuscan kale salad (spoiler! it will be in our upcoming cookbook)

• Ricotta Tiramisù

Guests who come back

Brooke first joined a class in 2023, and I’ve now been teaching for her groups for two years. But she’s far from the only one who returns. Many students book a second (or third... or even fourth!) class, familiar faces we welcome back into our kitchen, who gradually become friends, and sometimes, like family.

First and foremost, I have to mention Amanda and Andrew, from the UK. Amanda joined one of our classes for the first time in July 2013: it was a gift from Andrew, who looked after their two young boys during the class. The second time, Andrew and the children came along for lunch, and I had the pleasure of meeting those two little boys. Over the years, the whole family has returned — I vividly remember a summer request for beans and sausages! — and I’ve watched the boys grow into young men. This year, while the boys were off working (!!!), Amanda and Andrew came back for the sixth time. It truly felt like welcoming family. We spent the day reminiscing and sharing photos of our children.

Then there’s Juliana Lopez May and her joyful, vibrant groups of women from Local por el Mundo, who fill our kitchen with laughter and colour every September. Same can be said for the groups of Untold Italy, that we welcome a couple of times every year.

Susan and Jill — my “Canadian aunts” — have been with me since the very beginning, before I even met Tommaso. They’ve seen me grow from a food blogger to a mother and cookbook author, and they still return for classes.

Susan and Ken have joined a couple of our sessions too — now, we bump into each other at the market or the butcher’s when they’re back in Italy.

Dede and Chris completed their fourth class in October, joined by Kim, who impressively took four classes in a single year!

Ellen and Dave first attended in 2022, joined every single cook-along online, and returned this October for a masterclass.

Jincy and her family have joined us twice for classes — now, we’re friends beyond the kitchen.

And I’m quite sure I’ve forgotten someone (please forgive me!), but I can say this with certainty: returning guests are the most meaningful feedback we could ever hope for. Thank you!

The October Masterclass

We closed the month with our October Masterclass — a lovely group of eight people who instantly clicked and became friends. Here’s everything we cooked over our three days together.

This menu is a wonderful reminder that meat, too, is seasonal. I would never dream of cooking fegatelli — those rich pork liver bonbons, skewered with sausages, bread, and bay leaves, then roasted until glistening — in the heat of summer.

I hope this inspires you to embrace seasonal cooking in the weeks ahead, with a distinctly Tuscan twist.

Wednesday

• Chocolate bread topped with gorgonzola and persimmons

• Dried porcini mushroom risotto (all about risotto here)

• Pork liver and sausage skewers. Pork lover in Tuscany is chop into large pieces, spiced with breadcrumbs, black pepper, salt and fennel flowers, and wrapped in caul fat. Eventually, it looks like a pork liver bonbon. We serve them skewered with sausages, bread, and bay leaves, a seasonal delicacy.

• Fennel, orange, and pomegranate salad

• Castagnaccio, chestnut flour cake topped with apples

Thursday

• Crostoni with cannellini beans and new olive oil. THE BEST. I could survive on these crostoni for weeks.

• Minestrone, because when you handle so many vegetables at once, you have leftovers, and they become a wonderful minestrone

• Pici pasta with roasted squash, sausage, and leeks

• Porchetta from the butcher

• Broccoli flan. I rediscovered a love for flans with the colder days. This was made with Romanesco broccoli, following this recipe.

• Chocolate and clementine cake —you’ll hear about this cake soon!

Friday

• Chicken liver spread for crostini, similar to this recipe, but I now use the recipe I shared in Cucina Povera, improved over the years and according to my Tuscan friends, the best so far

• Pear and pecorino crostoni, a classic

• Cocoa cappellacci stuffed with roasted squash and chestnuts

• Ossobuco, perfect for the end of October weather (recipe in Cucina Povera)

• Radicchio salad, bright and refreshing with new olive oil and aceto balsamico

• Pan co’ Santi, the Tuscan seasonal bread studded with raisins and walnuts

This was our final masterclass of the year. A new season begins in March, and places are already filling up quickly. You can find all the details here:

Cook more, stay longer. Your invitation to Tuscany. 2026 cooking classes are here!

We’re especially excited about a very special masterclass taking place from Tuesday 3rd to Friday 6th March, featuring two guest teachers who will share the secrets of their own culinary traditions: Liguria and Puglia.

I’ll be joined in the kitchen by two dear friends and exceptional teachers: Enrica Monzani, from A Small Kitchen in Genoa, and Flavia Giordano, from SpaghettiABC. Together, we’ll guide you through a unique experience that blends our regional cultures, cooking techniques, and most beloved seasonal recipes.

Alongside our daily hands-on classes, we’ll explore the countryside, visit bustling local markets, go foraging with a local expert, and enjoy wine and olive oil tastings at Tenuta Mensanello, a working farm and agriturismo nestled in the rolling Tuscan hills.

October’s favourites from the market, vegetable garden, and the hedgerows

Butternut Squash and pumpkin

These days, I can’t imagine autumn without instinctively flipping through ideas for squash recipes, but it wasn’t always that way. For many years, this beloved autumn vegetable simply wasn’t part of my cooking repertoire.

That changed about fifteen years ago, when my blog first nudged me out of my family’s culinary routine and into uncharted territory. Squash and pumpkin were there, waiting patiently to be discovered.

I’m not one for pumpkin spice lattes or putting squash in absolutely everything, but I do cook with it at least three or four times a week. It’s become a staple autumn ingredient in my kitchen, taking over from eggplants as the days grow colder. I roast it in the oven for side dishes, purée it into risottos, turn it into pasta sauces, or slice it into thin wedges and coat it in breadcrumbs. And in the new book you’ll find a couple of dessert recipes with squash, too (spoiler number 2!). Squash is comforting and versatile in equal measure.

Now, when I go to the market, I chat with the vendors about which squash is best for a risotto or which variety would make the perfect filling for tortelli. Their shapes, textures, and colours — from the vivid orange of a ribbed pumpkin, to the deep forest green of the long, velvety Neapolitan squash, to the muted green with blueish hues of a fairy-tale-like Delica — have become the very picture of autumn for me.

Chanterelles and Porcini

I’m not a mushroom hunter. When I walk in the woods, I’m far more taken by the play of light filtering through the oak branches, the sharp scent of juniper, the rustle of leaves underfoot, and the distant cry of a bird. The sensory experience is so rich, it leaves little room for the sharp concentration needed to spot mushrooms. Or perhaps I simply lack the instinct.

My father, and my late Nonna Marcella, were both expert mushroom hunters. They knew the local woods as intimately as the backs of their hands.

One autumn day, though — mild and damp recent rain — I was following my usual path when a splash of yellow caught my eye beneath an oak tree. A closer look revealed a perfect chanterelle, vibrant and fresh. Like something out of a fairy tale, I looked around and saw that I was surrounded by them—chanterelles everywhere. When I am so lucky to find chanterelles, I like to make these two recipes: barely risotto with chanterelles and pasta alla boscaiola, with chanterelles and porcini.

Chestnuts

As soon as October arrives, my father-in-law appears with gifts from his summer house in Mugello: beautiful, plump, glossy chestnuts.

Until a few years ago, Mugello was, to me, simply the region that produced the delicious milk I grew up drinking. Then I met Tommaso. Part of his family hails from Mugello, and he lived there until the age of twelve, when they moved to Florence.

In Mugello, chestnuts are almost revered. Once a vital source of nourishment during hard times, the chestnut tree — known as the tree of bread — is still held in deep respect. But don’t just call them “chestnuts”. In the town of Marradi, they grow the prized marron buono, larger than your average chestnut and especially well suited for making high-quality marron glacé.

For now, I’m simply enjoying chestnuts roasted in a cast iron pan or in the oven. But soon, it will be time to welcome the season’s first chestnut flour into my kitchen, ready for pasta, castagnaccio and necci.

Listen to this old episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent all about chestnuts.

Olives and the olio nuovo

This year, we picked our olives during the second weekend of October. With our small olive grove — just over thirty trees — we still harvest entirely by hand, patiently waiting for a stretch of sunny days. The olives must be completely dry when picked; otherwise, they risk moulding as they await their turn at the frantoio, the olive oil mill.

We gently rake each tree, letting the olives tumble onto the nets we’ve carefully laid out below. There’s an art to predicting the harvest: you need a rough estimate of how many crates you’ll fill in order to book your pressing slot at the mill. Will you finish in time? Will it be enough to justify a batch?

When it’s finally your turn, you take your crates to the frantoio, whether it’s a festive day or in the quiet hours of night. The mill never truly sleeps. Here, the olives are watched over carefully until it’s time to press. What flows out is the essence of the olive, their raw, unfiltered juice, a luminous green elixir that glistens with grassy, peppery, pungent notes. The taste is so vivid, so fresh, it borders on the magical.

This is the exciting season of olio nuovo, the freshly pressed olive oil. Read more about it here.

Now it’s your turn. What’s been cooking in your kitchen this October? Hit reply and share your stories — I read every single one, and I always love hearing what you’ve been making.

Ten recipes for all the squash loves out there

• Chickpea and butternut squash soup. Last year I found myself with a bowl of cold chickpeas and some butternut squash which screamed to be used as soon as possible. They married in a thick soup tinted in autumnal colours and since then this has been my go to meal when I’m in a hurry and I need a comforting bowl of steaming soup to cheer up my day.

• Lasagna with roasted squash, taleggio e guanciale. Lasagna is the embodiment of traditional family gatherings around long tables, of a crowd-pleasing food, that delights both those who like the crisp corners and those who go for the creamy, buttery central pieces.

• Risotto zucca e zafferano. Squash, Saffron, and Sage risotto. Risotto is a great weeknight recipe: learn how to make it according to the season to have a delicious, quick, Italian-inspired meal.

• Tagliatelle with dried porcini and a squash and sage pesto. I had been thinking about this pesto for a while. I imagined the texture, rustic and not too creamy. I was looking for a perfect balance between the sweetness of the roasted squash and the more intense flavour, tending towards bitterness, of walnuts and sage. The savouriness of the grated pecorino romano added what was missing.

• Crespelle di zucca, Butternut Squash and Ricotta Crêpes. These crespelle are perfect for entertaining or simply treating your family to something special. Despite their elegant appearance, they are surprisingly simple to make, especially if you prepare the components—crespelle, béchamel, and filling—ahead of time.

• Roasted squash and chestnut cappellacci. Cappellacci are a type of stuffed pasta which resembles old-fashioned hats. Round and plump, they are joyful, festive, and easy to make.

• Frittata di zucca, squash frittata. An unusual combination for a frittata, but it is the perfect omelet for the season.

• Broccoli and squash flans. Made with seasonal vegetables, ricotta, and cheese, the broccoli and squash flans also make for a balanced main course during weekdays.

• Butternut squash pizzette. The recipes that save your dinner are brilliant ideas to use common ingredients and turn them into a meal. These butternut squash pizzette are a good example.

• Butternut squash cake. I’ve baked this cake countless times, fascinated by the moist texture given by the butternut squash pureed with yoghurt. Just like a carrot cake, it stays fresh for days, making it the perfect breakfast cake. The butternut squash is warmed by a teaspoon of grated nutmeg, a spice that goes perfectly with a cup of milk or black tea.