‘Most of the code is having tremendous age that I am not seeing since my training’, said the sympathetic Indian voice over the line.
We were discussing updating our site, which I’d learn slowly over the course of the phone call, would be like repairing a old VHS player. And one that was first made out behind the house, cobbled together from parts of an old tractor. As he read aloud the history of the site, his voice pulled me through the last 15 years. The summer of 2005 I tried to rewrite the text using a software that is now only a Wikipedia footnote. That winter when we tried to recreate the site in both languages. 9 years ago when the backup failed. 7 years ago when Russians politicians started laundering money online, making electronic payments nearly impossible in Europe. 6 years ago when we took down the old analog black and white photographs and replaced them with digital colour. The rewrites. The updates. All of it read coldly, like a doctor surveying the clipboard hanging at the foot of the bed, of a patient that isn’t doing too well. Or you know, one that is having tremendous age.
When most everyone I know was making two large round prints in the sand on the shores of the Adriatic, I spent the month rewriting the entire site, updating the video and all the photography. We created a secondary, password protected part of the site, just for recipes, lecture notes and videos for past students. It will be ongoing resource centre for all who have ever been (write us). We added a store, where you can buy the things we use at the school. And after the next harvest, where you can buy our extra virgin. We hired a graphic designer for the first time to update our logo.
We’ve added a few new courses as well.
The Jewish Cooking of Southern Italy.
Foodwriting with Russ Parsons.
Our films are now on the site.
We’ve added two more bicycle/wine/ courses, two of which are almost full and it’s only August.
And we’ve broken up our day courses to accommodate both those that want just lunch and those that want both.
We hope you take a peek and tell us what you think.
As I listened to his voice read out the history, I couldn’t help but feel that we are living in a remarkable part of world history, where a few people in Italy can invite all the world to come to Italy to cook and drink wine. And that we’ve never printed a single brochure.
And that the world came.
And that the world continues to come.
To write us just hit ‘return’. We’d love to hear from you.
