Spend a week eating and drinking with us in the Mediterranean

You might not want to tell the owner of X, but the Colombian author Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez (who won the Nobel Prize the year we opened the Deli in 1982) once said, “Going to Sicily is better than going to the moon.” For a whole lot less than one would need to spend to score a seat on SpaceX, you can spend a week in Sicily next spring with Zingerman’s Food Tours (ZFT). While you won’t be able to see the whole planet from Palermo, you will see some truly exceptional sights that I’m pretty sure you’ll remember for the rest of your life. And, while I won’t suggest that a visit to the moon wouldn’t be memorable, I feel completely confident saying that the food and drink on the Zingerman’s Food Tour will be way, way, way better than what they serve in outer space! So good, I suppose, you could even say it will be out of this world!

Many 21st-century people mistakenly form their understandings of travel destinations based on the political construct within which those places are currently a formal part. Far more often than not that leads to false assumptions and missed opportunities. A deeper study of history, though, gives a more accurate picture, greater cultural and culinary understandings, and amazing experiences. As one example, French Catalonia, from whence the Banyuls vinegar hails, has alternatively been part of various Spanish and French kingdoms over the centuries, and, for a time, was also an independent principality. Sicily is certainly one of those places as well. While the island is currently part of the same political construct as Rome, Milan, and Florence, the reality is that for far longer it was, proudly, just itself. In fact, the Kingdom of Sicily existed for over six centuries up until 1860, three times longer than Sicily has been one of the regions of Italy.

When one mentally detaches Sicily from the rest of the Italian boot, it can be understood in a wonderfully different way. Having been to the region more than a few times, I think about it as part of a magical culinary triangle—Tunisia to the south, southern Greece to the east. Sicily a bit off center left to the north. Sicily, in that setting, brings together significant influences from North Africa and Greece; Arabs and Europeans; Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It has olive oil, wine, honey, exceptional produce, and amazing almonds. It has pasta shapes and styles not found anywhere else in Italy. British historian Vincent Cronin called Sicily “an island lying outside time, where past events endure in an external present, a beach on which the tides of successive civilizations have heaped in disorder their assorted treasure.” In my own experience, it’s a magical, one-of-a-kind place with out-of-the-way gems and hidden culinary jewels. Exactly the sort of place that’s ideally suited to spending a week on Zingerman’s Food Tour.

The ZFT trip to Sicily this spring starts the week of U of M’s graduation. If you aren’t going to the commencement, then consider taking this beyond-terrific trip. The tour is six days and focuses on the eastern side of the island of Sicily. Visit amazing restaurants, learn from incredible home cooks, sip at wonderful wineries, commune with the culture, the history, and how to cook the food! Some of the highlights include:

• A visit to the amazing artisanal chocolate producer Antica Dolceria Bonajuto. If you want to experience what chocolate making in Europe would have been like four hundred years ago, this is the place to do it. And the chocolate is terrific!
• An amazing lunch all built around Bonajuto’s artisan chocolate.
• A visit to Taormina, the ancient city founded by the Greeks but with the influence of Romans, Normans, Arabs, and more.
• Visit the remarkable volcanic Mount Etna.
• Partake in the bounty of the fertile plains of volcanic soils—grapes, vegetable fields, and pistachios spread out from the slopes of Mount Etna.

As you consider whether or not to go, I’ll remind you of what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said nearly two hundred years ago,

To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything. The purity of the contours, the softness of everything, the exchange of soft colors, the harmonious unity of the sky with the sea and the sea to the land … who saw them once, shall possess them for a lifetime.

Save your seat to Sicily

Truffles, wine, hazelnuts, cheese, chocolate, and more!

Looking for a life-changing adventure? Something that will provide you with marvelous memories of great food and great people that you will carry with you for the rest of your life? Curious about crafting your culinary and cultural wisdom? Consider this, then: while students are settling into their dorm rooms to start the new semester at the end of August, you could be landing in Turin to take a weeklong excursion in Piedmont with Zingerman’s Food Tours! Heading out at the end of the summer way is one of the best times of year to travel—you beat the bulk of the summer heat and also the height of the tourist season.

I’ve probably been to Piedmont at least 10 or 12 times over the years. While it’s well off the beaten tourist track, it’s long been one of my favorite places to travel to. Without question, Piedmont has some of the best food and wine you’ll find anywhere in Italy. If you want a literary recommendation to enhance what I’m offering here, the region’s elegant capital city of Turin was much appreciated by both Friedreich Nietzsche and Mark Twain. The region is located in the upper northwest corner of Italy, butting up against Provence to the west and Switzerland to the north. The name Piemonte is derived from the old local language and means “the foothills of the mountains.”

Although it’s very much part of Italy, the region really has more in common with eastern France and the foothills of the Alps than it does with other, more distant, parts of Italy like Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria, or Puglia in the south. Seth Sherwood wrote in the New York Times last winter,

With the Alps as a background, Turin, Italy’s fourth-largest city, is elegant, photogenic and rich with history. Grand squares and former royal palaces abound in this northern Italian crossroads, nicknamed Little Paris, which was briefly Italy’s first capital after the country’s unification in 1861. … the city is awash in earthly pleasures. Both gianduja chocolate and vermouth were invented there, and can be sampled among the historic coffeehouses, chocolate shops and aperitivo bars that line the city’s arcaded shopping boulevards.

The tour to Piedmont is a terrific way to taste the jewels of the region’s cuisine. There are truffles and anchovies, and an array of world-class cheeses that are little known outside the area. The wines, such as Barolo, are widely acclaimed. And don’t forget the fantastic hazelnuts, considered the best in the world, which will show up in any number of dishes during the course of the tour. There is also an amazing chocolate tradition—when you’re in Turin try the Bicerin, the classic coffee drink of the town and a favorite of French writer Alexandre Dumas. It’s one-third each of espresso, hot chocolate, and cream, all layered lovingly in a glass so you can clearly see each layer. You’ll also find lots of the terrific artisan chocolate hazelnut spreads that we love so much around here, like the super tasty Noccioliva (featured right now on our Summer Sale) we use so regularly at the Coffee Company and Roadhouse. The region even has its own ancient language called Piemontèis or Lenga Piemontèisa.

The tour starts with a wine class presented by tour cohost Bernardo Conticelli—Bernardo just came to Ann Arbor to visit us for the first time and was the guest star at a series of great events we held around the ZCoB last month. There’s also an old-school stone polenta mill, a century-old cheese shop that’s been selling artisan cheese for so long it makes the Deli look like a new arrival on the food scene, a day trip to go truffle hunting, and then a whole truffle-focused meal! Oh yeah, in the spirit of schools starting up for the fall semester, there are also formal lessons at Slow Food University.

Lots of wine, a whole lot of chocolate, and loads of good learning. There’s a whole range of really great highlights—check out the delicious details! If you’re looking for a life-altering, incredibly tasty, educationally inspiring, culturally rich, wisdom-building way to spend a week, check out this trip today! If you go on the trip, I’ll forecast that you’ll still be reminiscing about it fondly for years!

Plan to visit Piedmont!

A guided week-long visit to one of the more exceptional places to eat and drink in all of Europe

“Andalucia, when can we see you?” The answer is in September 2023

One of my favorite songs of all time is John Cale’s “Andalucia.” Cale, who will turn 80 this coming March, is a classically-trained, avant-garde musician who went on to play bass, viola, guitar, piano, and organ in the anything-but-classical Velvet Underground. When the band broke up, Cale started a solo career as a musician and producer, as well as becoming a contributor to a host of other musicians’ work. He played on Nick Drake’s second album, Bryter Layter, and also produced Patti Smith’s first album, Horses. Although I like all of Cale’s solo work, I have a particular affection for Paris 1919. The album, which came out in 1973 (it will be 50 years this coming February), featured members of the band Little Feat and the UCLA Student Symphony Orchestra. Every song on the record is really good, but “Andalucia,” the fourth cut, remains my favorite. The first line is the lead-in for the wonderful, world-class Food Tour that this piece is actually about.

Andalucia when can I see you?

“Andalucia,” the song, is a delicate and gentle piece, both lovely and lush. The feeling it gives me is what I imagine it will be like to walk through the lush late-autumn week when our annual trip to the region commences on September 30 of next year. Andalucia, the region, is one of the most magical places I’ve been, filled to the brim with great food, wonderful wine, rich culture, and fascinating history.

There are a thousand good reasons, in addition to my affection for John Cale’s song, to go to Andalucia next fall with Zingerman’s Food Tours. One is that you’ll get to travel with John Cancilla and his amazing wife, Ana. John has worked for decades with Marqués de Valdueza, our long-time olive oil (and vinegar and honey) supplier in western Spain. He’s originally from Los Angeles, spent his junior year abroad at Hebrew University in Jerusalem (as I also did), and ended up finding what might well be a dream job working with the Valdueza family. John is one of the smartest, funniest, and all-around kindest food people I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Ana’s exceptional network of friends produce some of the most precious gastronomic treasures one can find on the Iberian Peninsula. Between Zingerman’s Food Tours guide (and long-time IT Director) Elph Morgan, John, and Ana, you are guaranteed to eat well, drink incredible wine, see beautiful scenery, laugh a lot, and learn some of the very special history of the region. You’ll be invited far off the beaten track to hidden places even very few Spaniards are likely to know. John says,

This trip is all about the local gastronomy, but it’s also about the local economy, the social structure of Southern Spain, the role of women in agriculture, and the Jewish and Arab legacies in the Andalusian kitchen. All of this was planned with very close friends who have done their best to help us show the hidden face of Andalusian gastronomy and experience Spain off the beaten track.

The tour itself will spend a lot of time exploring the gastronomic world that sprang up in Andalusia, drawing on the springs that include the Roman, Arab, Jewish, and Christian kitchens that flow in the region after centuries of conquest, domination, and not-always-so-peaceful cohabitation. We will visit Sherry wineries and enjoy professional tasting for what amounts to a Master Class in the region’s wine. We will also learn about certain aspects of Andalusia’s unique, local food production with visits to a Retinto beef producer, a seawater-based vegetable producer, the remains of the original Roman fish conserves and garum factories, and a superb, Iberian ham producer in Jabugo. Also, tuna is king on the Mediterranean coast of Andalusia and we will learn about the ronqueo, or the carving of a tuna, in the hands of an expert chef in Barbate.

The hotels are great, too: Las Casas de la Judería in Seville is a hotel created in the old Jewish quarter of the city, in actual houses of the former Jewish residents. The streets, patios, and gardens of the quarter have been maintained, and staying at La Judería is really like flying back in time to experience life in what was one of Spain’s most vibrant Jewish quarters. The other hotel, in Jerez de la Frontera, is a five-star deluxe–it’s pure elegance and exquisite service. Our guests are going to love it!

Add in some long walks, great talks, terrific tapas, and a healthy dose of history, and this is a seriously awesome opportunity for a literally once-in-a-lifetime culinary travel opportunity!

Cale’s “Andalucia” is a song of unrequited love. In the lyrics, his unnamed lover chooses not to meet up with him. I have a feeling she might still be kicking herself all these years later for missing out on a special opportunity. The Food Tours are much the same. If you’re game for an exceptional week of eating, drinking, learning, loving, and laughing, book your spot today! It’s hard to convey the quality of connections and camaraderie that come together on one of these tours. Kristie Brablec, managing partner at Zingerman’s Food Tours says, “We find special humans doing really amazing things. It’s connecting people, and when you break bread with people, you have opportunities to grow tight bonds. It’s pretty special.”

Book now to get someone you love one of the most special gifts they’ll ever get!

P.S. If you want a bit more music to listen to while you consider coming on this world-class Food Tour, Yo La Tengo (in 1990) and Andrew Bird (in 2020) both did terrific cover versions of Cale’s classic song.

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A week of enjoying the food and wine of Lyon and the Jura awaits

If you’re one of the many folks I know who’s thinking about heading out for some significant overseas travel to try to make up for the last few years, this Zingerman’s Food Tour to France might just be the ticket. Not only is it an amazing culinary destination, the tour next year happens at pretty much the perfect time of year to go to France—the final days of May and the first few of June, when the weather is nice, but not too hot, and before the height of the tourist season begins!

Of all the tours on our docket, this is the one that Kristie Brablec, Managing Partner of Zingerman’s Food Tours, is currently most excited about. Why?

Lyon is the heart of gastronomy in France, started by the mothers of Lyon (this is a story we could tell in itself); many people don’t know that the gastronomy movement in Lyon was born from women. From Françoise Fillioux to Eugénie Brazier, the history is deep with women leading the kitchen. Paul Bocuse is the most well-known, of course, but still, he was trained by Eugénie Brazier, and sadly this is often overlooked. Eugénie was also the first person ever awarded 6 Michelin stars—three at each of her restaurants, and this dates back to 1933—a true female powerhouse in the culinary world, and it all started in Lyon.

The region is home of Comté, one of the finest cheeses produced in the world. Secondly, it’s home to one of my favorite wine regions worldwide. This region is often missed and very rarely traveled. It’s difficult to gain access to this region for various reasons. Outside of serious wine nerds, tourism is very limited in this area, even to the French. The Jura is the smallest wine region in France. Less than 500 producers spread across 80 kilometers of vineyards, covering four wine Appellations.

Lyon could be to France what Bologna is to Italy—a gastronomic wonderland that’s loaded with luscious cheese, wine, world-class cured meats, lots of good eating, and plenty of additional art and culture to boot. The city has shown up regularly on the New York Times’ list of “52 Places to Go.” The Comté-Jura region is, for me, even more special. I love the mountains and I love mountain cheese, and the Jura has the best of both! Comté cheese has long been one of my favorites, and the little-known Vin Jaune of the region is very much the perfect fortified wine you want to accompany it! Sipping on the latter, nibbling on some well-aged bits of Comté on a beautiful spring evening, and watching the sunset over mountain peaks sure sounds pretty superb.

If you’re ready to spend a week traveling, tasting, and creating lifelong memories, give some thought to signing up for this trip with Kristie. If you’re looking for skillfully guided travel, incredible food, wine, people, history, and culture, this superfine food tour will pay big dividends! You will still be sharing stories from it ten years from now when we are finishing our 2032 vision!

Reserve your spot!

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Sign up for Ari’s Top 5 e-newsletter and look forward to his weekly curated email—a roundup of 5 Zing things Ari is excited about this week—stuff you might not have heard of!