Gualtiero Marchesi's restaurant was more akin to an art exhibit, than a place where you can get something to eat.

Marchesi's friends and clients talk about Milan in the 1980s and how the fashion business helped it become such a cosmopolitan city. Reference is made to Florence's "Sala Bianca," [White Hall] in the Pitti Palace, where fashion shows took place before Milan became synonymous with high fashion.

Marchesi talks about how important his travels in Europe and in Asia had been in enriching his menu, and confirming the path he was following.

Marchesi's friends provide details about their long-term relationships with the celebrated chef.

One thing that was special about Marchesi's cuisine was that rather than looking abroad for exotic ingredients, his dishes were works of art made with local, ordinary materials.

Marchesi shows us a delicious dessert made from leftover panettone. Panettone is an Italian fruitcake from the Lombardy region that is traditionally served during the Christmas season. Cinepanettoni are comic movies served up during the holidays.

Agata and Catena have stopped at the Catania outdoor market to do some food shopping. Catena gets to taste some of the delicious local specialties.

Catena and Agata relax in the garden of Agata's baglio [Sicilian architectural form with buildings arranged around a courtyard]. They're getting ready to cook typical Sicilian dishes that Catena will include in a cookbook she's writing.

Here we go with a new series with Anna and Marika. Each video will feature an oral quiz — just like in actual Italian schools — about a region of Italy. A separate cooking video will feature a recipe from that region. We start in the "heel of the boot": Puglia.

Anna gets grilled on Sicily by Marika. Oral quizzes are very frequently used in Italian schools. Grading is done on a scale from 1-10 for primary and secondary schools, and from 1-30 at the university level.

It's time to talk about Calabria, a southern region with both sea and mountains. Let's hope Anna did some studying.

Let's see if Anna has studied one of the northernmost regions of Italy. It's a border region and as such, has some peculiarities.

Because Anna knows the subject backwards and forwards, she volunteers to take the teacher's quiz on Liguria, but that doesn't help much with her grade.

The first place we visit is practically a theater on a mountain, designed and built to replicate places with religious significance in the Holy Land. The mountain, aptly named, is Sacro Monte (sacred or holy mountain) and is located in Piemonte, to the northwest of Milan.

We visit the 28th chapel where the scene of Jesus before Pontius Pilate is depicted. We also learn a little secret about how these statues were created.