In Palermo, Arab craftsmen carpeted the Norman palace with glittering mosaics and 18th-century artisan Giacomo Serpotta fashioned fanciful scenes from stucco in chapels around the city. Few interiors in the exotic, enchanting, and at times exasperating capital of Sicily, though, are as enchanting as the stately dining room of the Palazzo Lanza Tomasi, near the seafront in the old Arab Kalsa quarter.

A seat at this well-polished, convivial table comes with A Day Cooking with the Duchess classes, combining literary pilgrimage, the multilayered exoticism of Sicilian cuisine and culture, and the not-soon-to-be-forgotten acquaintance of Gioacchino and Nicoletta Tomasi, the duke and duchess of Palma di Montechiaro.