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IN ITALY I OFTEN FIND MYSELF GUSHING, “Life is beautiful!” But in Ravello, high above the Amalfi Coast, the gushing gets elevated to “Life is more beautiful!” The sky is bluer. The sea more sparkly. The horizon more hypnotic. The tomatoes more delicious.

It’s fitting that in such a divine spot there lives a Goddess of Amalfi Coast Cooking: Mamma Agata. She’s an irresistibly adorable woman—pleasingly plump, with twinkling, almond-shaped eyes. Her smile warms my heart. She’s been cooking for most of her eighty-some years, and to watch her move around a stove is simply marvelous.

This one-day Mamma Agata Cooking Class takes place at her home: an eighteenth-century villa, surrounded by terraced gardens, perched on a cliff with a to-die-for view of the sea. Chiara Lima, Mamma’s daughter, is the gracious mastermind behind the whole operation.

Chiara even turned my traveling pal Carol and me on to fantastic digs nearby at the Villa Scarpariello (www.villascarpariellorelais.it). It’s an amazing mix of old buildings, and a tower from the twelfth century, hidden in a seaside nitch. It feels like a well-kept secret, but here I go blabbing about it, because that’s the way I am. Each balconied suite of rooms is unique, and many have kitchens, so it’s a temptation to check in for a week and just bliss out. One of the many zigzags of stone steps on the property took me right down to the water for a refreshing before-school swim.

Class at Mamma Agata’s begins with lemon cake and coffee. “It was Humphrey Bogart’s favorite,” Chiara tells us. When Agata was thirteen, she began her pro-career working in the Ravello villa of a wealthy American woman who entertained star visitors. “Baby Agata” was what Bogey called her, and he wasn’t the only one among the glitterati who was wowed by her cooking. Agata has great stories about making pasta e fagioli for Anita Ekberg, spaghetti alla puttanesca for Fred Astaire, and insalata Caprese for Jacqueline Kennedy. “Jackie was Mamma’s favorite,” Chiara says. “She always talks about how she was a real lady; so kind she’d even insist on washing her own coffee cup.” The lemon cake is phenomenal. And eating it out on the terrace surrounded by the very trees where the lemons came from makes it all the more delicious.

The class is mostly demonstration. Twelve of us students are gathered in the tiny kitchen, with Agata at the stove, joined by Chiara’s husband, sommelier Gennaro, who brings many years cooking at top kitchens to the mix, as Chiara narrates. Practically every ingredient is what’s grown right here in the gardens. There’s rolled eggplant appetizers and eggplant parmigiana expertly assembled by Gennaro. We get tastes of fresh tomato sauce, sniffs of just-picked basil, as Chiara tells us Mamma’s “secret techniques.” This is simple cooking—it’s the details that make it divine. “Listen to the sound of that sizzle, that’s when you know the garlic is ready, now’s when you put in the tomatoes for the sauce” says Chiara. She’s printed out all the recipes for us in a glossy handout and CD, so we don’t even have to take notes. We can just sip wine and watch the master at work.

It’s delicious fun. We take breaks to walk around the gardens with all of us oohing and aahing over the paradise we are in.

After three hours, we take our places at a long, wooden table on the terrace. Lovely signorine magically appear with platters and pans of everything we’ve learned how to cook. The sun streams through the pergola. More than one of us says, “This is the best lunch I’ve ever had.”

For the grand finale, out comes homemade limoncello, perfectly chilled. The day has gone along like a song.

I can’t resist giving Agata a hug goodbye. My arms don’t reach all the way around. She tilts her cheek to me for a kiss. “Grazie, grazie, grazie,” is all I can whisper to her smiling face, again and again and again. I don’t hold back. I am in Ravello, after all, where everything is elevated.

TOURS

Mamma Agata Cooking School (www.mammaagata.com) offers cooking classes, and can arrange private dinners or even a wedding party. Check the website for the shop that sells Mamma Agata’s Signature Products, including pasta, olive oil, and limoncello.