Francesco Aiello, the eponymous owner of Francesco’s Ristorante and Pizzeria in Maitland, offers occasional classes in Italian cooking. This weekend, on Sunday, Mar. 5 – and again on Mar. 19 – he’ll focus on the secrets to making a perfect artichoke. For more information and to sign up for the class, call the restaurant at 407-960-5533.

 Hemisphere at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport, will host its March wine dinner next Friday (3/10) with a four-course Tour of Italy, with wines from Lombardia and Piemonte. Tickets are $165 per person plus tax and gratuity. Valet parking is complimentary (seriously, it’s super easy to park when you’re going to Hemisphere; just pull up to the Hyatt Regency’s entrance, drop your car off with the valet, then take a few steps to the elevator and rise above all of the airport bustle.)

The evening begins with a reception at 6:30 p.m. with dinner at 7. Call Hemisphere to reserve your place at the table – 407-825-1234.

For this month’s edition of Local Flavor, the recipe column I do in collaboration with The Community Paper, I’m featuring the scotch eggs from Claddagh Cottage in the Curry Ford West District. St. Patrick’s Day is in March, after all, and Claddagh Cottage is one of the area’s most popular Irish pubs.

But why feature something Scottish from an Irish pub? you ask. Well, a scotch egg (notice the lowercase s) is not Scottish (uppercase S). Scotching (an uppercase S only because it’s at the beginning of the sentence, otherwise it would be scotching) is the process of wrapping minced meat around something, in this case an egg. If you were to wrap minced meat or sausage around, say, a strawberry it would be called a scotch strawberry. And it would be a lousy appetizer. And indeed, scotch eggs are very popular appetizers in Irish pubs, at least in American Irish pubs.