Friend Jackie was visiting. Everyone who knows Jackie, knows that she LOVES to cook. So I signed us up for a cooking class, Sienese style at the Scuola di Cucina with the lovely Lella Cesari Ciampoli.
Jackie and I joined an evening class with 8 young American women students, living in Siena, and 2 Dutch women on holiday. Our cooking adventure was to make a 4 course typical Sienese dinner.
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| Sauteing the garlic for the soup |
Our first dish was Pappa col Pomodoro, or old bread-tomato soup. Sounds much better in Italian. This was a wonderful soup made from only garlic, oil, old bread, basil and tomatoes. So simple, but so delicious. One of the things we notice in Italy is that people practice a "100 mile diet approach" and eat fresh and local. And everything is made from scratch!
Up next was Pici Salsiccia e Funghi, or home-made pasta with mushroom-sausage sauce.
First we had to make a pasta dough and work it until Lella told us it was soft enough. Then we rolled out little, fat spaghetti pieces. At the same time we started the sausage and mushroom sauce.
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| Jackie and I work our pasta dough |
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| Our finished pasta dish. We made the spaghetti! |
Meanwhile, on to course #3, a roast pork and potato dish, "Arista in Porchetta Con Patatine Arrosto". We cut up lots of spices and stuffed them into a pork roast. Lots of garlic and lots of olive oil and into the oven to bake while we toiled on. It's now about 9:30 pm and we've been at it since 6:30pm. But no rest for us, and niente a mangare. Before we eat, we need to make the dessert.
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| Roast stuffed pork and potatoes |
Dessert was a Rice cake, "Budino di Riso". We cooked rice in milk and sugar and made a thick goop, that we added flour and eggs to. Then in went some raisins and we poured it into a big pan to bake.
Finally, it was 10:30pm and we got to sit down at a long table and eat everything we made.
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| The rice cake with a drizzle of chocolate sauce |
Everything was mouth-watering delicious. It wasn't that hard to make, just time-consuming. Maybe this is why a lot of Italian women work in the home so much. You can't just whip this up in 30 minutes. But the idea of "slow eating" and enjoying the fresh foods in your region are very appealing. We have lots to learn from our stay here.
To those of you coming to visit us: I will endeavour to make some of these dishes, in fact, I've already made the tomato-bread soup and loved it. But we have no oven in the villa where we stay so don't get your hopes up too high!
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