Gerri Sarnataro is a true New York woman. She grew up in Queens, and has spent her entire adult life in Manhattan. She graduated from New York University with a degree in educational psychology, received a master's in developing psychology from Teachers College at Columbia, and taught in New York City schools before switching to a culinary career. Now, however, another place is competing with those deeply ingrained urban roots: Castiglione del Lago, in Umbria, home to her own cooking school, Cucina della Terra. Sarnataro, whose parents both immigrated to the US from Italy, took her first trip there in 1972, but then spent years exploring France instead. In 2000, she began going to Italy regularly, with a desire to discover each region, the way she had traveled in France. Once she arrived in Umbria, however, she planted her feet there, as she says, and started going back over and over again, attracted by the cultural, historical, and gastronomic richness of the region. She began looking for a venue that would allow her to bring people over for culinary vacations, which would feature visits to local producers as well as cooking lessons. She bought her remessa, which she defines as being "almost like an agricultural garage," in 2006. Thirty olive trees surround the "very long house," which overlooks Lake Trasimeno. She hosted her first group of students in spring 2008, and will do so again next year, building her classes slowly. She has no intention of leaving her ICE students behind, however strong the pull of Italy might be, she says, reveling in this bi-continental life.

Sarnataro had first found her way in the culinary world when New York City faced a recession in the late 1970s and cut back on teachers. She began taking cooking lessons, before attending the New York Restaurant School for pastry arts, where she met Nick Malgieri, and the French Culinary Institute for culinary arts. She comes from a food family, as she describes it; her paternal grandfather was a chef in Greenwich Village, his wife owned a restaurant, and her maternal grandfather owned a grocery store on Madison Avenue. She and her five siblings grew up exposed to very fresh ingredients, which marked her indelibly, she says, forever connecting the rhythm of her life to that of locally grown foods.

Sarnataro worked at Lavin's and at Wood's before joining the staff of Charlie Palmer's Aureole. She was so attracted by the acclaimed chef's food that she waited four years and trailed for six months before obtaining the job. She then owned a catering business and worked as a chef for private organizations. Tired of restaurant work, Sarnataro joined ICE in 1996, as an administrator who did a bit of everything. A year later, Malgieri, by then director of ICE's pastry arts program, asked her if she would teach a bread baking class. The opportunity thrilled her, since it was a way to use the extensive educational background she had acquired as a first career. She became a full-time instructor in 1998, teaching pastry arts on the professional side and recreational courses that range from seafood and Italian cooking to pastry and bread making.

While her Italian business is her main hobby these days, Sarnataro also enjoys biking and gardening—anything to do with the outdoor, she says. She is a member of the Bread Bakers Guild of America and Slow Food.

Fall, 2008