Is this heaven? No it's Mama Agata's in Ravello.

Ravello is about a 15-minute zigzag up the mountainside from Amalfi. Today was spent entirely at Mama Agata's home and gardens, where we were greeted by Mama Agata, her daughter Chiara, and other members of the family. They run a cooking school, which Chip was a part of, and they also gave us free license to roam the grounds looking for painting subjects.

We were warmly greeted by Chiara, who has recently published a gold-medal-winning cookbook, seated at a long table of beautiful place settings, and served capuccino and the most luscious, moist lemon cake we've ever tasted.

On the grounds there are groves of lemon trees, herb gardens, kumquat trees, lavender, and much much more.

The painters set about painting, and the cooking students set about cooking. After maybe 90 minutes of demonstrations, the entire group was seated at the table (which is on an outdoor shaded porch overlooking the sea) for a 3 1/2-hour, seven-course meal of fritters (fluffy pancake-type batter with salami, zucchini, cheeses mixed in and deep-fried to a puffy, light texture), fried zucchini flowers (dipped in the same batter, stuffed with cheese and proscuitto), eggplant parmesan (like no eggplant I've ever tasted), spaghetti with tomato sauce and arugula, some other pasta with sausage and parmesan, lemon chicken with rosemary and basil, and more lemon cake with limoncello (a liqueur made from grain alcohol and lemons).

I simply cannot believe how much food was served up, and all of it extraordinary.


The eggplant parmesan.

The spaghetti with arugula.

Mama Agata (left) and daughter Chiara autographing her cookbook.

Tomorrow is our last day in Amalfi, and we are returning to the town of Ravello for our final day of painting.