Meet Our Partners: Jovial Foods – Culinary Getaways

As My Humble Kitchen continues to grow, one aspect of this website as a business that I enjoy is working with brand partners that I truly love and support – I would purchase their products regardless if we worked together or not.

Jovial Foods is one of those businesses that I truly admire and respect. Founded by Carla and her Italian husband whom have a deep commitment to support small-scale, sustainable economic model that focuses on farming first and then considers the entire process all the way to the shelf. You can read their story, mission, and a bit about their farmers here.

I am so blessed to have partnered with Jovial for my 25 Days Grace Filled Journey to Real Foods email subscription and am so excited to be partnering with them again, right here on the My Humble Kitchen website. What I enjoy about partnering with brands is that I get the opportunity to work with them closely. It allows me a little behind the scenes look at how much work these companies do to provide us with nourishing foods and products that we can feel proud about serving to our family. As a means to be transparent to you, my readers, I am planning on sharing these amazing companies with you each time I partner with a brand for an extended period of time.

If you’d like to learn a bit about their einkorn flour, I wrote a post called, The Tangled Web of Bread, that talks about this ancient grain. Besides their amazing einkorn and gluten free products that they offer on their online store, today I wanted to share with you a bit about their culinary getaways. I’ve had my eye on this culinary getaway ever since Jenny of The Nourished Kitchen led an einkorn class at the Jovial Villa in Lucca last year.

This year in May, Carla, the founder of Jovia, will be leading a traditional einkorn class at the Jovial Villa.

On this getaway, you’ll learn how to bake many types of sourdough bread, using the same wheat the Romans and Egyptians did.

Your getaway will begin with an authentic Italian welcome dinner. You’ll then transition into rolling fresh pasta with Carla, her family, and jovial’s local pasta artisans. Next, you’ll turn back the clocks to ancient times, for an in-depth class on baking einkorn bread, and the preparations and explanations of einkorn sourdough will continue all week so you will return home an accomplished baker.

You’ll also learn to prepare traditional Italian foods with carefully selected seasonal vegetables, heritage meats and fresh fish.

To get a little up close and personal, I decided to ask Jovial a few intimate questions about the culinary getaway with Carla, founder of Jovial.

Q. Jovial’s Culinary Getaway seems like a real foodie’s paradise. Can you please share a bit about the getaway and what makes it so unique?

Our Culinary Getaways are unique because the cooking classes are hands on and they are being taught by the owner of our company. Carla and her family have resided in Italy for quite a while now where she has learned authentic Italian cooking. The getaway is held at a beautiful 18^th century villa amongst rolling hills and olive groves.  People come together for the class at the beginning of the week as strangers and by the time the Farewell Dinner rolls around everyone is like old friends! Many of our guests will travel taking day trips to various places together and everyone seems gather in the kitchen at the end of the day talking about their adventures and their meals.

Q. One of the things that caught my attention right away about the getaway is that the founder of Jovial, Carla, is leading the cooking classes. Can you please share a bit about Carla’s unique perspective on food and how she learned to cook real food.

Carla’s parents were of Italian heritage and food always played a large part in their lives. So Carla grew up around the kitchen making sauce with her grandmother or helping her father put out his Saturday spread of fresh oysters and clams with his own cocktail sauce. When she moved to Italy she spent a lot of time around the kitchen learning from the older women (and men). Carla has spent years mastering baking with einkorn and when she returns to the US for the summer & holidays her starter travels with her!

Q. Can you please share one of Carla’s favorite einkorn recipes that she’ll be sharing at the culinary getaway?

There are so many! From making fresh pasta, to waffles & bagels-but probably one of her favorites is showing people how to make sourdough bread. She enjoys demystifying the process and letting everyone know this is something they can do.

 Q. Besides food, the accommodations seem exquisite. Is there any history you can share with us about the villa? Is it true that the Jovial farms are near the villa? Will we be able to visit the farms?

The villa is a former summer estate which has been carefully restored to its original splendor. This estate is situated amongst the rolling hills, vineyards and olive groves. It is really elegant and yet very comfortable. The villa has a gourmet kitchen, a ballroom and it even has a small private chapel. It is an example of true Tuscan style. The property sits on a hill above a small town where you can find the train station, some shops and the area’s best gelateria. Jovial does have several farms in the Tuscany region and einkorn is grown near Sienna, at this time we do not have plans to visit the farms, but on the previous trip we did. AMAZING! I think the einkorn farm is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Q. Another important thing that caught my attention about this getaway is that there is quite a bit of free time to allow us to venture out into Italy. Are there any nearby organic farms or wineries that you can share with us?

Many people day trip into Lucca which is a wonderful little medieval walled city. You can actually rent bikes or walk the wall that surrounds the town. Other popular spots are Pisa, Florence, Cinque Terre-it really depends on what your interests are. But Carla is a great resource for suggestions and information and she is there for the entire trip so it works out well.

Thank you so much, Jovial, for letting us know about this amazing Culinary Getaway and for partnering with My Humble Kitchen!

As you can tell, this is going to be a great trip! To check out all of the details, visit the Jovial Culinary Getaways website here.

Jovial Online Coupon Code

To all of you Jovial fans… great news! Jovial foods has extended their online coupon for all My Humble Kitchen readers! You have until June 1, 2014 to get 10% off all your orders PLUS FREE SHIPPING! Visit the Jovial online store here and use the coupon code… HumbleK.

So, doesn’t this trip look absolutely fantastic? Tell me, have you ever traveled abroad on a culinary getaway? Have you ever been to Italy? What were your favorite foods eaten abroad?