Renowned Sicilian cooking school founder Marchesa Anna Tasca Lanza did not know where the kitchen was in her first eight years of marriage!

Today, she conducts the prestigious cookery classes on her family's celebrated Regaleali wine estate in the heart of Sicily, and is in Malta to share her culinary knowledge and flair over the next few days.

The servants of the enormous palazzo she lived in on Palermo's main road in the 1950s would recommend their proposals on a notebook and take the order on the other side of the page - normally from her in-laws, or her husband. So she did not even have a say in that!

But that was then... Things have changed and it is not so much a man's world anymore - whether that is for the better, or not, the marchesa has yet to figure out. What is for sure is that, today, she is not only in charge of her kitchen, but an expert at what she does, attracting to it leading chefs and food aficionados.

Her cooking school targets mainly Americans and it is rather selective due to its cost.

The elegant, refined and affable marchesa has an entrepreneurial spirit, apart from being creative. She is the author of a number of cookery books that are sold in the US. Among them is The Heart Of Sicily, which was intended to be her first and last and is, therefore, the most "complete", as well as The Garden Of Endangered Fruit, Herbs And Wild Greens From The Sicilian Countryside and La Sicilia In Cucina.

An authority on Sicilian cuisine, Marchesa Tasca Lanza recalls, with no hint of anger, the time when "first came the men, then the women... When it came to concluding matters I had been discussing, I was always asked for my husband, or my father... That was the attitude".

In order to find her own footing on the estate, she founded the school - but almost as a joke in that she never truly believed in its success. It was thanks to her "extraordinary" father's passion and encouragement that it took off.

The marchesa reflects on how simple life was then - simple being the operative word, even in her cooking.

Wrapped in a red pashmina, the smart septuagenarian sprinkles as much elegance into her food as she does into her appearance.

Her aim is to look at the recipes of the past and update them with more "elegance and lightness", without changing them.

Presentation is important, but without exaggerating and not to the point of neurosis, she says.

Coming from a family of "golosi" and "buon intenditori della cucina", where eating is a ritual and a time for criticism, the marchesa does "not wish on anyone the challenge to cook for my relatives".

And considering they adore food and practically live for it, being svelte runs in the family. Then again, butter and cream have been eliminated from their dishes sometime ago. "My father used to send the food back to the kitchen if it was not floating in butter, but no one wants to eat like that anymore," the marchesa points out. It is a matter of health, but also the evolution of taste.

Her own favourite ingredient is a good olive oil - the basis of everything - and, in particular, that of Regaleali, she says in loyalty to her estate.

If she were stranded on a desert island, she would be content with three ingredients: spaghetti, tomato sauce, of which she prepares about 400 jars of three mouth-watering varieties in August and stores for a year, and parmigiano.

The marchesa is finicky about her simple pasta al pomodoro e parmigiano, which has to be "perfectly al dente", and would not eat it anywhere else. "That I can have at home!"

Unlike Italians in general, however, she is open-minded about other cuisines and curious to try them out. It is, after all, her curiosity and will to experiment that can be considered her personal touches, which she pours into her dishes.

However, that is not to say she is interested in culinary fusions of any sort. On the contrary, she focuses on her native cuisine and its traditions, which she hopes would be passed on through her only daughter, an art historian. In fact, as regards her future projects, she only hopes her daughter would replace her and continue her legacy.

Marchesa Tasca Lanza is preparing her culinary delights at Mezè Restaurant, in St Julians, over the coming days to promote the renowned Sicilian winemaker Tasca D'Almerita, the thriving enterprise on one of the largest family-owned wineries in Italy, which dates back 150 years.

It is an oasis of over 500 hectares, 370 of which are under vine, offering more than 40 grape varieties from the world over.

But even though they are one big happy family, the winery and the farm, located a couple of kilometres apart on the estate, are "rivals" as regards what emerges from their kitchens and their agricultural produce. Even the tomatoes they both grow, on the same terrain, are in competition, the marchesa laughs, admitting that, for some, it is not such a laughing matter.

She does not guard her kitchen secrets fiercely. "I have none. What for? To take them with me to my grave? For God, who does not want spaghetti al pomodoro?"

Anyone else, though, would not dream of giving it a miss!

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