Almost a Month in Italia

Dough art, it’s the new thing. You can’t get that flower detailing just anywhere.

Ciao!

Well, this week marks one month of living in Italia! I can’t believe time has gone by so fast! I finally had to pull a Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love and purchase new clothes. I don’t know if the heat is causing me to swell or…..it’s definitely the heat. Pasta and pastries don’t do that to you. Big sales are still going on in Italy so I have no complaints. They do this nationwide sale and every store has to get rid of last seasons collections. Things are marked down like 75% right now. So whatever has caused me to swell didn’t hit my wallet to hard.

Pasta from today with the tomato and olive sauce.

Yesterday was orientation for the new students, so I went to my culinary class instead. We started out with a sea bass type of fish and then we made bell pepper rolls with a breadcrumb/herb filling. I was personally in charge of the desserts. It’s funny because the chef usually puts me in charge of frying things or desserts. Is she trying to tell me something? The desserts were small circular sponge cakes with liqueur brushed on top of them, and in between each sponge cake was a different topping. The first was just cocoa powder and a butter/powered sugar mix. The next was a toffee type of bar chopped up with the butter/sugar mix. After that it was a marshmallow and chocolate type mix. Then it was covered in a mixture of all of the toppings, rolled in roasted hazelnuts and topped with a cherry. Your mouth watering? Glad we’re in the same boat.

My masterpieces

Today I started my Wine and its history in Italy course. My instructors name is Mossimo and he’s a middle aged, florentine man. I’m really looking forward to the class. I really liked my weekly wine classes so a wine class everyday should be exciting. After my wine class I made it over to my tuscan culinary class. We prepared a trout dish with peas and tomatoes, taeratelle noodles with a tomato and olive sauce and foccacia bread. The trout was very flavorful but there were so many bones but Victoria says that it’s just part of it. Luckily we didn’t have to clean the fish today. Yesterday was a little rough with the fish cleaning.

Tomorrow we are cooking with cereali which is like whole grains from what I understand. I think we are going to get to make pesto soon! Victoria says that I have to at least make it once. One thing about apicius is they never do the same menu twice–in a year. Luckily I’m in the middle of the year so hopefully they haven’t done it yet. Anyways, I’ve got to get back to my homework for class–tasting wine. Life’s tough.

XOXO,

Wesley