A Year in a Tuscan Cooking School: July

A month of saints, Palio, summer flavours, and sweet nostalgia, plus 10 recipes with eggplants

Welcome to the seventh 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, you can revisit the previous chapters here: January, February, March, April, May and June.

JULY

I used to be like one of those elderly people who are constantly blaming the weather, checking the forecast app more often than Instagram. I've been struggling with the heat in recent years, so after the first scorching week of July, I was ready to spend the entire summer grumbling about it.

Then, a sudden downpour cooled the air and brought back the summer of my childhood. I know this is only a moment — I'm well aware that August can be scorching again — but for the first time in years, I didn’t complain about the sticky heat, nor did I sleep on our wobbly inflatable mattress in the living room.

I even had to pull a sheet over me at night, as a cool breeze drifted in through the open windows, bringing back those balmy nights I used to love as a child. The crickets’ serenade provided the perfect backdrop for a deep, restorative sleep.

July is a month of celebrations in my neck of the woods.

We begin on the 1st of July with the feast of the patron saint of my town, San Marziale. Picture the most classic of Italian town fairs: neighbourhoods competing in games, each proudly displaying their own flags, which are hung from shops and homes from the week before. There’s a religious blessing of the river that flows just beneath the San Marziale church, and local restaurants are fully booked.

A whole section of the town is closed off to make space for candy stalls, street food carts, vintage car exhibitions, and a joyful crowd pouring in not only from the town itself, but from the surrounding villages too — all here simply to stroll up and down the road, eating brigidini (crisp, thin wafers speckled with aniseed) and clouds of cotton candy. At 11 pm, fireworks bring the celebrations to a close, leaving in the air that faint smell of gunpowder.

If you happen to be in Siena, though, the 1st of July marks the Cena della Prova Generale — the dinner held the evening before the Palio.

It’s the night when every contrada gathers to eat together in the streets or squares of their neighbourhood. It is the longest night, and for some, one they wish would never end. A night filled with hope, where people sing traditional songs, listen to speeches by the Capitano and the fantino (the jockey), and celebrate their shared dreams.

Then comes the 2nd of July — the day of the Palio, Siena’s legendary horse race. It’s an event my students are always eager to hear about, intrigued by its rituals, superstitions, and medieval customs. It’s something everyone should experience at least once in a lifetime — ideally with a local by your side to explain its many peculiarities: from the blessing of the horses in each contrada’s church, to the joyful tears of the winners and the bitter weeping of those who come second (as it is considered worse to finish second than to be the last to cross the finish line).

This year, we spent both days at home — soothing our dogs, who could still hear the fireworks in the distance on San Marziale’s day, and watching the Palio on television.

July 27th is also my birthday. I turned 44 this year.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I love July so much. For years, my nonna would bake me the most classic, vintage birthday cake: a light sponge, sliced into three layers, soaked in alchermes, and filled with both vanilla and chocolate pastry cream. She would frost it with traditional icing, often tinted a delicate shade of pink with just a few drops of alchermes. My dad — not a pastry chef, but the most resourceful man I know — would pipe melted chocolate from a pastry bag to decorate the cake. He’d write my name and age, and add a few little doodles, all for the final photo, which would be printed and carefully placed into the family album.

For much of my life, that was my birthday cake — first made by my grandmother and decorated by my dad, then later baked by me, once I began taking my first steps as a home baker in my teenage years.

During my blog era, I ventured into all sorts of birthday treats: from cheesecakes to rhubarb crostata, from a rustic buckwheat cake to olive oil choux pastries.

This year, though, I simply stuck a candle into a little lemon and almond cake I ordered at a restaurant, during a lunch out with friends in the hills above Vicenza. We were there for a surprise birthday party for another friend, a weekend full of celebrations. I closed my eyes, counted my blessings as I held Livia in my arms — she was inhaling deeply, ready to help me blow out the candle — and I made a wish.

July and summer cooking classes

Over the course of seven classes and one three-day Masterclass, more than 65 students joined us — mainly from the US, but also from Belgium, Northern Ireland, Germany, Iceland, Sweden, and Australia. This has been a year of many firsts: I loved chatting with Icelandic and Swedish guests about how they cook at home, their favourite dishes, and the ingredients they cherish most.

July has been all about colours, fresh salads, plenty of vegetables, seasonal stone fruit, and foraged greens.

Together, we cooked fresh borlotti beans with sage, bay leaf and garlic; silky strands of pasta dressed in a minty zucchini sauce; the very first fresh tomato sauce of the season with plump cloves of aglione garlic; thick focaccia with potatoes and pizza rossa; zucchini risotto; endless platters of zucchini carpaccio and bowls of panzanella; roasted eggplants and grilled ones with a punchy herb dressing; tiramisù with ricotta and coffee; and pesche al vino — thick slices of white peach marinated in rosé wine with honey, cinnamon, and mint. I foraged for wild fennel to sprinkle on top of chickpea cake, the first blackberries to add a splash of colour to fruit salads, and portulaca (purslane) for tomato salads and panzanella.

Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement of the 2026 Masterclass calendar. As a newsletter subscriber, you’ll be the first to know all the details and have early access to bookings before they’re opened to the public.

July’s favorites from the vegetable garden and the market

Cucumbers

One of Livia’s favourite vegetables — she likes them cut into sticks — cucumbers always remind me of my nonna. They are a staple in every Tuscan summer kitchen — they grow so easily!—often paired with tomatoes and onions in our beloved panzanella.

My nonna used to slice them thinly — skin off, seeds left in — and dress them with olive oil, salt, and just a touch of vinegar, which turned the slices almost pearlescent. She would eat them with mozzarella or with bread rubbed with tomatoes; it was often her dinner. I’d find her in her kitchen, with the news or a soap opera playing softly in the background, sitting by the window and enjoying her meal, a thick slice of sesame-studded bread in hand to mop up all the juices.

This is my first summer without her. Whenever I feel that familiar pang of nostalgia, I slice a cucumber and dress it the way she used to — and suddenly, she feels closer than ever.

Eggplants

Not traditionally associated with Tuscan summers — for decades they were more common in the Italian South — eggplants came into our kitchen repertoire thanks to the southern side of my family.

Grilled, baked, stuffed, or fried, eggplants are my favourite summer vegetable. I never tire of their smoky, meaty flavour, something I eagerly await all year. I’ve shared my top 10 eggplant recipes below.

For me, summer isn’t truly over until I’ve made a few trays of melanzane alla parmigiana to stash in the freezer for the colder months. It’s a joy to eat even in the heat of summer, but nothing compares to the comfort of biting into a thick, piping hot, intensely savoury slice on a cold winter day. It’s like tasting the Mediterranean sunshine.

Incidentally, eggplant parmigiana is also the dish I’d choose as my last meal — the ultimate comfort food, steeped in memories, tradition, and that bright, unmistakable southern warmth.

Melons

At the market, we choose a melon. Finally we got the ones coming from Maremma, on the Tuscan coast: with smooth skin, with the typical netted peel, and the most common one, with netted skin already marked into slices. I look for one that’s round and unblemished. I lift it — it’s heavy in my hands, and the heady aroma is sweet, with a hint of gentle spice.

Just a two-minute walk away is the butcher’s. I head straight to the charcuterie counter and point to the prosciutto Toscano, nestled between a salami and a wedge of pecorino. Stefania, the butcher’s wife, is at the slicer. She knows I like my prosciutto well-aged, marbled, sliced paper-thin, with that silky crown of creamy white fat edging every slice.

When the ingredients are this good and the summer this hot, cooking becomes more of an act of assembling. Prosciutto e melone — the quintessential Italian summer dish — is one of the best examples. Read more about it here.

Now it’s your turn — what’s been cooking in your kitchen this July? Hit reply and tell me, or leave a comment here. I love reading your stories.

Ten eggplant recipes to fall in love with this summer

• Baked eggplants.  It is a side dish that could easily become a main course once served with a tomato salad. You need eggplants of course, either the round purple ones or those thin long ones, then breadcrumbs, parsley, capers, garlic and some grated Parmigiano. There it is, my forgiving recipe, thick slices of eggplants topped with boldly flavoured breadcrumbs, roasted in the oven until golden and crisp.

• Grilled eggplant rolls. This is a quintessential Mediterranean dish that showcases some of the best summer ingredients: fresh ricotta, eggplants, tomatoes, balsamic, fresh basil, dried oregano, all brought together by a generous drizzle of your best extra virgin olive oil. 

• Roasted eggplant salad. I’ve been making this roasted eggplant salad on repeat during our summer cooking classes. It would defy and convert even the eggplant skeptics, those scared by the texture or flavor of eggplants, which might turn too greasy, bitter, tough, you name it.

• Summer chickpea salad. You can add your favourite vegetables to this summer chickpea salad: not only slow roasted tomatoes and roasted eggplants, but also stewed bell peppers, zucchini sticks, chopped green beans, or even pickled vegetables, as fresh onions, beetroots and carrots. I also added Taggiasche olives, which are among my favourites, but Kalamata olives would work as well, just as tiny capers, packed with flavour.

• Ciambotta, summer vegetable stew from Cucina Povera. Think of ciambotta as the Southern Italian cousin of France’s ratatouille. It’s a vegetable stew of peasant origins that puts summer bounty to good use. Zucchini, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, eggplants, and potatoes: one by one, you add the cut-up vegetables to the pot according to their cooking time and simmer until they’re all tender but still hold their shape. If you have the book Cucina Povera, you’ll find the original recipe on page 54 (by the way, it is currently heavily discounted on Amazon.com. You can find all the links to purchase Cucina Povera—including from many wonderful independent bookstores—on the blog.)

• Eggplant parmigiana. This is not THE recipe for melanzane alla parmigiana – or parmigiana di melanzane if you prefer – this is a recipe, the recipe I like, the recipe I ate during my childhood and the same recipe I have now, every now and then. It always comes with all the options: fried eggplants, not grilled, a generous sprinkling of Parmigiano (it is called parmigiana with a reason), a mozzarella still dripping milk and beaten eggs. I still wonder why I eat my favourite food only once every two years…

• Pasta with fried eggplants. I could easily eat fried eggplants as they are, such as peanuts. But If you overcome the desire for fried eggplants and manage to get to the next step, please try this pasta dish, so hearty and full of flavour. It is the perfect way to celebrate summer.

• Pasta alla norma. Pasta alla Norma is a seasonal, Sicilian dish made with fried eggplants, a rich tomato sauce, fresh basil leaves and a dusting of ricotta salata. Once you try it and appreciate the perfect harmony of all the ingredients, you understand why it is worth frying eggplants in the heat of summer, and why it was probably named after Bellini’s masterpiece, Norma.

• Calabrian peperonata. Eggplants, peppers, and potatoes are used profusely in Calabrian summer cuisine: fried, grilled, stewed, or preserved for the winter season. Three of my friend Mariarosa’s recipes will end up in our next cookbook—and have been part of my cooking repertoire for a while, too—but I saved her peperonata recipe for the newsletter.

• Meat stuffed eggplants. I chose a stuffing of ground beef and sausages, but you can also use the same amount of beef and pork ground meat. As for the cheese, after years of loyal use of pecorino, I just fell in love with the depth of flavour of aged provolone, a fabulous spicy and biting cheese from the South of Italy which you should add to your top ten of things to try at least once in your lifetime.