Day 6

Italy 2010

Day 6

If you're going to go to cooking school, it's nice to realize you've just made something you're going to want to make again and again. Everything we made was mouth watering, and we don't wish to belabor the point, but our stomach gauge is on full 24/7.

We started by making a peasant salad called Panzanella. This is supposedly made from odds and ends in the kitchen, but ours was made from fresh veggies from the market and day old bread. There also are hard boiled eggs with the orange yolks from the neighbor’s chickens. It tastes great and the presentation is excellent.

While making the salad, we also made tiramisu, a challenge in of itself. All the cutting, chopping, beating and whipping for both dishes was done by hand and was a good upper body workout. However, nothing compared to the following dish which was fresh pasta. We made a type of pasta called pici, which is ‘cut’ with a special rolling pin after the dough is prepared.

The nice looking Italian in the next picture really worked us and whipped us into pasta chefs in less than an hour. All the female students love this man for his teaching skills and a little more.

In Italian cooking, the pasta is the first course which is followed by a second course that usually has meat. Our secunda piatti we made was roasted chicken and potatoes, and it was arguably the best we have ever eaten. The process of making it is different than any we’ve known and includes a secret ingredient you have to get here in Italy and is not found in the U.S.

After feasting, we got a short break before traveling to a medieval city called Viterbo to tour a water garden. This garden showcased water and sculpted rock but not flowers. Many of the trees in the garden have been there since the park was created 450 years ago.

Dinner fortunately was a three course affair. Even though we’d had pasta early in the day, we had it a second time partly because it was called ‘Strangled Priest’. The final main course was wild boar in mushrooms. The restaurant for this meal was top notch After all this eating, breakfast will consist of cappuccino only.