Va bene?
Bene. Andiamo!
So today I slept in until 11:45am. It was DEFINITELY needed. Yes, I go to school in Minnesota, which is a big campus, but I never walk as much as I have since being here. There is a very good bus system (which follow the schedule very well!) but I really only use the bus to get from where I live into the city center. From there I walk the rest of the day.
After eating breakfast with my family (at noon) I got ready for the day. (This time the shower didn’t go so well and I ended up getting the floor and the door all wet. I wish I had a shower curtain. L) Oh well. I took the bus into the city and walked around for a bit and ended up meeting up with a few of my friends from my group. At this point it was about 4pm and we had to meet up with our group at 5 pm because we were all going to a cooking class. We were hungry and knew that it would be a few hours before we’d eat, seeing we had to cook first. So we walked around the corner from my friends’ apartment and got a panino! My first panino of my trip! I got salame e formaggio. I’m not sure what kind of cheese it was, mozzarella or provolone. Either way, it was delicious and was 3€.
After our snack we headed off to the Apicius Culinary
Institute, which was about a 15 minute walk from where we were at that point.
Unfortunately it rained all day, so it was cold and damp. Once we got to the
institute we washed up, received our aprons and recipes and were divided up into
two groups to be separated into the kitchens. The bigger group was put into
what looked like you typical cooking class room. The group I was in was smaller
and we went into the other kitchen, which was a regular professional kitchen.
(Which used fire ovens instead of electric.) We were split up into smaller
groups to work on each of the dishes. The first course we made was risotto con
gli spinaci (rice with spinach). It was delicious! We even made the stock from
scratch! The next course was arista (roast pork loin). There are many ways to
cook it, but we made in the Florentine way. This was probably some of the best
pork I’ve ever had. (Sorry, Mom and Dad!) Next was the patate arrosto (roast
potatoes) which obviously were delicious as well. Finally we had dessert. I was
in the dessert group. We made zuppa inglese (English trifle). We told our chef
about the Friends episode where Rachel makes the English trifle. Our recipes
did not get stuck together and it turned out just as it was supposed to. Our
chef instructed us to add some water to the liquor that dipped the lady fingers
in. (the other chef did not have the other group do this. TRUST US- You want to
add water, unless of course your goal is to be tipsy after your dessert. Once
everything was prepared we all sat down and ate. The meal was wonderful and we
got to keep the recipes. I think I will have to cook my own welcome home dinner
with them!!
Stuffed from dinner we all headed back towards home. This is
when my long walk comes in handy!
Walking home past the Duomo.
An interesting note for the day. I must blend in pretty well because I had two Italians come up and start talking to me in Italian, and they say Italians are pretty good at spotting foreigners. The first person asked me what time it was while I was waiting at my bus stop. The second person was an older guy on the bus. First he pointed out my small umbrella (ombrello) and then he was pointing out my rain boots. I understood the rain boots part, but I had no idea what all he was asking me. Finally I picked up my shoe and he saw the bottom and made some kind of confirmatory nod and statement. Besides being lost in the conversation, it was nice to know that I don’t stick out like a sore thumb!
i want the risotto recipe!
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