Thursday, October 11, 2012
Di Cucina In Italia
Ciao Ragazzi!
So over the last week I have been so lucky as to take a few cooking classes here in Italy. It has been such an awesome experience too! At home I am very much accustomed to the convenience of fast food. It is cheap (usually), fast, very little effort is put in to actually acquiring food. But I actually do enjoy cooking. The few dishes I know how to make I have learned from my mother or by looking online. But I have always had a tendency to go for simple dishes because I am nervous about the complexity of the ingredients.
When I first went grocery shopping here in Italy it was extremely overwhelming. One... because I don't know what ingredients are called in italian and two... because many of the ingredients I would use in my few recipes aren't available or at least aren't prepackaged (such as my favorite Lawry's seasoning salt). Now that I am getting more comfortable with grocery shopping here I actually needed to learn some new recipes.
Our campus provided us information for an amazing company called "Cook, Eat, Italian". This amazing Italian woman named Manuela teaches from her own kitchen in her home. So I, with a group of friends, decided to sign up for a course. My first lesson I learned how to make fresh pasta from scratch. I really don't think i've ever had that much fun in a kitchen. The process to making fresh pasta is actually pretty easy. Ingredients are pretty basic. The really fun part is stretching the pasta. I now know that I can not live without a pasta maker. I plan for it to be one of my souvenirs to take home. They are inexpensive and totally worth it. While it of course takes time, it is entirely worth it. Fresh pasta tastes simply amazing. And the unique ways you can alter it! You can add just a little bit of extra flavor by using saffron or spinach. Making ravioli's was definitely my favorite part. And learning the unique ways you can style your ravioli, either in squares, or special shapes, or contort into bows. But most importantly, it was simple to understand, fun, and extremely delicious :)
So after my first class I was extremely eager to join again. I instead took a vegetarian cooking class with a new group of friends. Now, anyone that knows me from the U.S. knows that I never eat vegetables. Not necessarily because I don't like them. They just don't particularly appeal to me, especially in their raw form. However the dishes we made for that class were simply amazing. The recipes were more complex than my last class, however, still simple enough to follow. There was a lot of cutting up of carrots, potatoes, eggplant and zucchini. In the end however, we made a truly delicious meal that included fried eggplant, fried mozzarella wrapped in zucchini, a kind of potato and carrot pizza and a yogurt type of dessert. Everything tasted simply amazing.
What was truly inspiring about these classes is that Manuela was so patient, kind and helpful. It really intrigued me to learn more dishes and to use what I have learned. I am so excited to cook italian at home that doesn't just consist of boiling boxed pasta noodles. I am still planning to take more courses throughout my stay in Florence :)
Ci vediamo!
So over the last week I have been so lucky as to take a few cooking classes here in Italy. It has been such an awesome experience too! At home I am very much accustomed to the convenience of fast food. It is cheap (usually), fast, very little effort is put in to actually acquiring food. But I actually do enjoy cooking. The few dishes I know how to make I have learned from my mother or by looking online. But I have always had a tendency to go for simple dishes because I am nervous about the complexity of the ingredients.
When I first went grocery shopping here in Italy it was extremely overwhelming. One... because I don't know what ingredients are called in italian and two... because many of the ingredients I would use in my few recipes aren't available or at least aren't prepackaged (such as my favorite Lawry's seasoning salt). Now that I am getting more comfortable with grocery shopping here I actually needed to learn some new recipes.
Our campus provided us information for an amazing company called "Cook, Eat, Italian". This amazing Italian woman named Manuela teaches from her own kitchen in her home. So I, with a group of friends, decided to sign up for a course. My first lesson I learned how to make fresh pasta from scratch. I really don't think i've ever had that much fun in a kitchen. The process to making fresh pasta is actually pretty easy. Ingredients are pretty basic. The really fun part is stretching the pasta. I now know that I can not live without a pasta maker. I plan for it to be one of my souvenirs to take home. They are inexpensive and totally worth it. While it of course takes time, it is entirely worth it. Fresh pasta tastes simply amazing. And the unique ways you can alter it! You can add just a little bit of extra flavor by using saffron or spinach. Making ravioli's was definitely my favorite part. And learning the unique ways you can style your ravioli, either in squares, or special shapes, or contort into bows. But most importantly, it was simple to understand, fun, and extremely delicious :)
So after my first class I was extremely eager to join again. I instead took a vegetarian cooking class with a new group of friends. Now, anyone that knows me from the U.S. knows that I never eat vegetables. Not necessarily because I don't like them. They just don't particularly appeal to me, especially in their raw form. However the dishes we made for that class were simply amazing. The recipes were more complex than my last class, however, still simple enough to follow. There was a lot of cutting up of carrots, potatoes, eggplant and zucchini. In the end however, we made a truly delicious meal that included fried eggplant, fried mozzarella wrapped in zucchini, a kind of potato and carrot pizza and a yogurt type of dessert. Everything tasted simply amazing.
What was truly inspiring about these classes is that Manuela was so patient, kind and helpful. It really intrigued me to learn more dishes and to use what I have learned. I am so excited to cook italian at home that doesn't just consist of boiling boxed pasta noodles. I am still planning to take more courses throughout my stay in Florence :)
Ci vediamo!
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