Homeward Bound

I can hear the planes overhead that will take me to Rome and then home tomorrow morning. I booked a hotel near the airport since I have a 7 am flight and this room is a good place to remind me that I am not a real member of the leisure class, but merely a happy interloper. I arrived late morning and was told that the center of Florence was 3 km (about 2 miles), so I decided I needed a nice long walk. Window shopped and had a salad for lunch, with a glass of prosecco of course, but I am already transitioning back to my real life. I’m hoping I faced the last big challenge of my trip, figuring out the Florence bus system with no route map to get me back here.



I’m ready to come home, ready to see my friends, ready to get back to work, ready to traipse around my neighborhood with the utmost confidence in where I’m going. This has all been a marvelous dream, but I’m ready to see what happens next back where I live. I think I’m a little homesick. I’ve got good timing.

I’ve really enjoyed blogging. I think it has saved me from loneliness knowing that I’ve been sharing this with you and getting to tell you about it. I know I promised not to get too self-reflective, but do indulge me a couple more paragraphs while I have your attention.

Something remarkable throughout Europe is that most of the towns and cities have very few traffic lights, especially in proportion to the number of intersections, but they are still very pedestrian-friendly places. There are marked crosswalks and all you must do is step into one to stop traffic. You are allowed to cross peacefully, no honking, no yelling. This takes some getting used to -- scooter after scooter whizzing by and all those little miniature cars – something about the smaller the vehicle, the faster they seem to be going. However, you just have to take a deep breath, say a little prayer, and go, because the fact is, if you don’t step off the curb, you’ll be waiting there forever.

So I leave you with theses three morsels of advice. Eat good food, try new things, and step into traffic.

Dinner tonight – pizza in my room!

The Last Supper

We got to sleep in this morning, and I think it was because we needed to be well rested to tackle the pastry portion of our week. At 10 am we were making profiteroles – pastry puffs filled with chantilly cream and topped with a dark chocolate sauce – and Florentine petite fours – small cookies great with coffee made of dried fruits, toasted almonds, and honey, held together by egg whites. We also made a panna cotta – a beautiful Italian custard that has to set for several hours-- for dessert this evening. The profiteroles and petite fours were for lunch of course , along with that lasagna we made earlier in the week. (I am still fitting in my clothes . . . just not as well. It’s very possible that I may have some sort of lactose withdrawal when I return).

Remember that lasagna? It was Neopolitan-style with meatballs, and smoked mozzarella, hard-boiled eggs, grated parmesan, and both tomato and béchamel sauce. Crazy good and different.




And look at these profiteroles. I may recount this statement later, but making those puff pastries was not as difficult as I expected.



This afternoon, we had an olive oil and wine tasting in a wonderful wine shop in Lucca, Enoteca Vanni, named best wine shop in Tuscany by one of the wine magazines which is an impressive feat. I liked the place’s controlled chaos. Things seemed to be in no particular order, a bottle priced at 12 euros sat next to one priced at 95 euros. Underground there was a vast maze of cellars laid out much the same, with the addition of cobwebs, dust, and humidity. For the tasting, we were taken down into a particular Roman cellar that dated to 200 AD when it had been used to store vegetables and was probably at street level. Emmet with a PhD in organic biochemistry wanted very much to take a scraping of a spectacularly-colored mold on the brick back to his lab.



The things we prepared for our meal tonight, our last supper, make my top five list of all the things I have eaten this entire two weeks, and god, that is saying something because I have eaten like . . . what comparison do I use here? . . . I have eaten like some combination of the Queen of England, the late Julia Child, and Shaquille O’Neal.

These three items just fell perfectly into my tastes and preferences:

Orecchiette with Broccoli prepared with broccoli rabe, pancetta, and some heat with red chili pepper
Ossobucco Alla Milanese – veal shanks with a rice pilaf prepared in the oven on the side
Panna Cotta served with a berry sauce

Here we are trying to make those damn ear-shaped pastas. Needless to say, many parts of the anatomy were produced, probably only 40% in any way resembling ears.



Unfortunately, there is no picture of the veal. Terrible I know, but I forgot and ate it. But what about this beauty? This stuff was smooth as silk with a hint of lemon, downright heavenly.



It was our last day and we had a small celebration before dinner and received certificates stating what we had mastered. I don’t think it’s going to get me a job at Babbo, but I’m pretty proud of all that we did. This really isn’t a beginner’s classroom, and Chef Valter said as much while reflecting on how much it is a pleasure and a challenge taking on students for a week in this manner.

We were challenging and I’m chuckling as I write that – loud, opinionated, obsessively inquisitive. Seriously, Diane lost a 50 euro bet to her brother that she couldn’t not ask a question for one hour. She went double or nothing, and lost again! I love her curiousity and it just goes to show you how serious we all took this and how much we wanted to learn while we were here. You just don’t get the consultation of a professional chef every day.

And I do feel like I have been adopted into several new families. This could be like summer camp and we promise to stay in touch and never do, but we’re grown-ups, not teenagers, and we didn’t seemingly have much in common when we arrived, but we have our love of food and now we have this experience together and our profound appreciation for the skill, knowledge, and artistry it takes to prepare it well.



Tomorrow, I am back to Florence and then fly home on Sunday morning. I think I’ll make one more entry in this here blog and then call it a vacation.

Tip of the day
Ignore the expiration date on olive oil. They put it there just to move inventory out of store in order to make room for this year’s production. Olive oil is best used when it’s new, but will last long after the expiration date.

On hidden gems

This morning, we had a wonderful guide and native Luccan tell us more about Lucca and its remarkable history. In the war-happy region later known as Italy, Lucca miraculously managed to avoid attack and maintain its independence from the mid-15th century on. Their neighbors weren’t friendly peace-lovers. The Pisanos were very aggressive. There’s no love lost even now between Lucca and Pisa. And during the Renaissance period, no one was more aggressive then the Medicis in Florence who were even able to defeat and occupy Pisa in the 14th and 15th centuries, and to this day, the Pisanos have not forgot. Lucca, however, not only had their impressive wall protecting them, they also had an advanced practice of diplomacy and a very diplomatic sense of pragmatism.

Lucca maintained a neutrality, for which they are now praised but were historically criticized, but still evident today is the way that they masked their wealth. The buildings are mostly plain and modest from the outside, but inside they reveal Lucca’s riches. Lea, our guide, said that Luccans “have very long pockets” and she told a funny anecdote. Take a Milano (from Milan) wearing Gucci and Valentino and turn him upside down, nothing will fall from his pockets. Take a modest-looking Luccan and turn him upside down, and out will fall untold riches.

Here is an example of a typical building exterior -- no elaborate molding or expensive materials, very unlike Rome -- and a luxurious villa garden that might be tucked away somewhere behind it.



Quite a treat was our unscheduled visit to Attelier Ricci, a friend of Lea’s, who allowed a small group of us to walk through his home. He is a custom designer tailor with an affluent clientele. His building is completely nondescript and here is his studio/commercial space that fronts the street, but the following are his quarters off the street hidden like a pearl.



Chef Valter arranged for us to enjoy a tasting menu for lunch at Buca di Sant’Antonio, one of Lucca’s oldest and most renowned restaurants. It was quite different then Pizzeria Irma which now has a special place in my heart, but was as warm and enjoyable. Our entrée was goat meat and veal served with an artichoke puree. Lunch is such an enjoyable meal in Italy because the shops close from 1 pm – 3:30, so Italians take their time and drink wine and visit and laugh with their friends.

I must mention that I’ve learned that the siesta is an apocryphal concept. Italians are not napping from 1 – 3:30. They are having lunch or running errands or picking up their kids or getting haircuts. Shops are not open from 1 – 3:30 because the government imposes strict overtime pay on a workday more than 8 hours, so in order for shops to be open until 7:30 or 8 pm at night, they must close to give their workers time off the clock, and besides that, most Italians are at lunch so it does not make sense to pay the overtime to keep the shops open at those hours when there are so few people on the streets.

Fish was on the menu tonight – tuna carpaccio, sea bass, and cod. The tuna and the cod preparations were outstanding. Chunks of raw tuna were pounded between parchment paper until transluscent and were served with a lemon olive oil and a garnish of finely diced red, yellow, and green bell peppers. The cod was cooked with leeks and turned into a mousse served atop a pool of smooth chickpea cream. Mom and Bill, I put my trout-filleting skills to good use on the sea bass.




We also prepared a lemon sorbet made with sage. Remember when I was talking about how little I saw sage? It seems a staple of Tuscan cooking – it’s used so often and with such variety. Chef Valter called our lemon sorbet sexy because he added some Italian meringue which amped up its creaminess, but I think the sage is what made it sexy. I know you’re thinking sage in sorbet ? It was a knockout. If there ever was a sexy herb, it is sage. Someone really ought to just bottle its oil and sell it at the counter in Bloomingdales.

It rained today, very hard a while, even a bit of hail, thankfully, after we returned home. Here is a picture after it began clearing up.



Tip of the day
A joke around here has become “extra extra virgin olive oil, “ or “virgin virgin virgin olive oil.” There is only one acceptable olive oil at all times – extra virgin olive oil which is such because it has an acidity below .08%. Anything labeling itself different is either an inferior product that should not ever be used or it is marketing b.s. to get more of your hard-earned dollars which goes for “cold-pressed.”

All Hail the Cow

I had my tripe today. Did I tell you that of the 10 of us, 6 are from Italian-American families (which might be the undoing of our Chef Valter)? Tripe they definitely did not recommend. But it became known that I wanted to try it, and so in the market in Pistoia this morning, it was bought and this afternoon prepared. The first piece I tried was actually with the vendor in the square. He asked me if I was “una donna forte?” (a strong woman) and I said, “Si!” He cut off a piece, cut it in half, sprinkled a little salt on it, and he ate it with me.

I will admit there was some trepidation, but I wasn’t about to hesitate, not in front of like 12 curious Italians watching this strange Americana and the Chef. It tasted sorta like the stringy part of white meat turkey.

Here he is selling us the tripe we bought to take home with us and the dish we ultimately made.



Everyone, even the naysayers, was very pleasantly surprised by the dish we made above which included finely diced onion, carrots, and celery, but was the serving dish scraped clean at the end of our meal? No.

We made 12 separate dishes for lunch and it was probably the first time I really really overate. Oh but there was so much to try. The idea in Pistoia was to see what looked good and bring it home and cook it. The Chef had a few things in his head, quite a few, and a couple of people, very bravely I thought, also prepared their own recipes. Highlights for me were a panzanella which is a traditional Tuscan bread salad and pasta fagioli which is a popular Olive Garden item with the all-you-can-eat salad and breadsticks – a soup made with pasta and beans – and not surprisingly completely unlike what I thought it to be.

Click here for more picks from the market and of lunch.

This evening was dedicated to the Florentine steak, and let’s just take a few minutes of silence to reflect.



The Florentine steak is a T-bone, and Chef Valter maintains that world-wide, if you order a Florentine steak, you will receive a T-bone. I’m not so sure the term is so well known, but I am convinced it should be. For one, Florentine is much prettier word than T-bone.

With it, he served us a Brunello di Montalcino Riserva. Produced as well in the Chianti Classico region, it is a very well know variety of wine and expensive, and it was exquisite with the beef. Also exquisite but much more lowly was the wonderful zucchini accompaniment. We hollowed out “eight-ball” zucchini, and cooked them in the oven a bit, diced up their insides, sautéed them with olive oil, garlic, onion, fresh oregano, and tomatoes, restuffed them with a small piece of mozzarella in the middle, and cooked them a bit more. Beautiful.



Tips of the day
#1: Try panzanella. Make an ordinary cucumber and tomato salad with olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, salt and pepper, but combine it with cubes of good italian bread that has been toasted into breadcrumbs. The bread soaks up the dressing, but still stays a bit crunchy. Yummy.

#2: Always bring your meat to room temperature before grilling or cooking.

More wine.

So both vineyards we visited yesterday which were about 90 minutes from Lucca are in the region officially designated by the Italian government as producers of Chianti Classico – 170,000 acres of hilly forest with sandy soil south of Florence and north of Siena.

Only wine from this area is allowed to call itself Chianti Classico and it is so marked with a rooster on its pink label on the necks of their bottles. However, other regions may produce Chianti and very good Chianti outside of this border, so it is important to keep in mind that the “Classico” designation does not indicate quality. It is like so many things mostly a marketing tool.

Chianti Classico Riserva however refers to wine produced on special vines. Riserva, whether of chianti or another wine, was traditionally the wine reserved for the family itself so it was of higher quality, but it was also kept ”in reserve” should anything happen – drought, flood, lenthgy siege. It is of a higher alcohol and sugar content so it matures more slowly. The higher the alcohol and sugar content of a wine, the longer and better it will age. Color of course is a good indicator of age – younger wines are more of a ruby while older wines take on the color of garnet.

This I learned at the Castle of Verazzano which became home to the Verazzano family in the 7th century. The “vineyards situated in Verazzano” are mentioned in a manuscript which dates back to 1170. Giovanni da Verazzano, who discovered the Hudson Bay in 1524, and for whom the Verazzano Narrows Bridge is named, was born at the castle there in 1485.

After touring the cellars and learning about the process by which they make their wines and other products which include vin santo, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and wild boar salami, we sat down to a wine tasting with lunch. (There are wild boars all over the hills of Tuscany and are quite a problem because they like to eat the grapes especially at this time of year during harvest).

The wines were all wonderful as was the lesson from the sommelier on smelling and tasting them, but probably the best part of our time there was the small spoonful of balsamic vinegar that we were each given to taste, available for purchase at about $67 for 3 oz. I will take that medicine any day. It was mind-blowing and so unlike what I thought was balsamic vinegar. “Real” balsamic is aged over many years in small barrels and moved from barrel to barrel made from different wood (mulberry, chestnut, oak, cherry, ash) so that it takes on the flavor of each wood. The result is a dense syrup of very complex flavors and it is not something one would waste on lettuce but serve drizzled sparingly on fruit or chunks of parmigiano reggiano.

Our time at the Antinori vineyard was also very enjoyable and also included a tasting. Again Antinori is a much larger producer so this winery at Badia di Passignano is one of several in Italy. It is an old abbey founded in 395 and monks of the Vallombrosian Order still live there but Antinori leases the property from the church. Here Chef Valter arranged for us to meet with the winemaster, the head guy in charge of the winemaking at this location.

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Most interesting was his perspective on the wine market. He said that Italian winemakers recently did a survey of the US market and found that the large majority of Americans drink the wine they buy within 50 minutes of purchase. Sounds about right. What this tells them is that, as the US is the driver of the market at this time because it is the biggest, is they need to concentrate on producing more reasonably-priced wine meant for drinking and less wine meant for collecting, and they have made changes in their vineyards and practices to account for this.

But this does not mean they are concentrating on producing an inferior product. It means they have turned over much of their acreage reserved for the expensive varieties to the less expensive ones, that they have reviewed and reformed production techniques looking for efficiencies so as to keep costs low but quality high, and that especially they will try hardest to get their products directly to consumers rather than distributors who will hoard vintages in an effort to artificially manipulate the market. There is only so much wine that can be produced. The US wants more and more because we are beginning to understand wine and eat better, but there is only so much land in Italy and it is a crop influenced by the whims of nature – blight, disease, global-warming. For instance, this summer was very dry and hot and much money had to be spent hauling water up a very winding rough road for the vines.

Wine producers in Italy know that this is inability to meet demand is a temporary situation, however. And the same could be said about French producers. It is not that they think they will be able to produce more and more or that demand will decrease. It is that soon there will be a glut of good wine competing with Italian and French wines from every corner of the world as word of the profitability in wine spreads and different countries turn their focus to producing quality wines. We are already seeing this in Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Washington State, Long Island, etc. That’s a lesson in our free market economy. As soon as you create a demand, there will always be someone preparing to supply that demand when you cannot.



Click here for more pics of wine country.

Wine Tips of the Day
#1: Chianti Classico Riserva reaches its peak 5 – 8 years after bottling, so look for vintages from 1999 – 2002, or buy a 2004 and wait . . . yeah, right.

#2: Antinori wines are widely available in NYC and online of course. Their top of the line is Tignonello which can go for hundreds a bottle at a restaurant. Look for their Peppoli label which is the same aging process, same varieties, just on younger vines than the Tignello and at $30 on wine.com as opposed to $90. The Peppoli vines are currently about 10 years old. When they are 15, they will be turned over to produce the more expensive wine.

More wine?

No one slept last night.Well a couple of people did – Emmet and Joanne, and David (a doctor who learned how to sleep at the drop of a hat as a resident and who is said to be able to fall asleep between floors on an elevator) did. The rest of us, very little. Maybe I fell asleep after 1am but was awake by 5 and the sleep was fitful.

The Italians eat even later then New Yorkers. I first noticed this in Rome. If in New York on a weeknight, we are eating around 7:30 – 8, Italians seem to be sitting down to their evening meal around 9. Last night’s meal did not wrap up until nearly 10:45, and we all suffered from trying to go to bed so full of food and drink. Touring vineyards in Chianti seemed a bit of a task this morning at 8:30, but no worries, we pulled through brilliantly.

But for this reason, there will be an abbreviated blog entry today. I have to go to bed. We toured and tasted two wineries of differing production volumes – Castello of Verazzano and the Antinori vineyards at Badia di Passignano. Castello of Verazzano, a small producer, will produce less than 1 million bottles of wine this year while Antinori, a very large one, will produce more than 14 million of which a large percentage is shipped to the United States. I will tell you about them tomorrow as we have the afternoon off after we square off in a kitchen challenge preparing a lunch buffet using ingredients we find in the market town of Pistoia, but that’s domani.

Let me appease you with pictures of the pizza we ate for dinner at a fabulous local pizzeria in Lucca, Pizzeria Irma. Chef Valter ordered ahead and we sat down to mugs of beer (thank god because none of us could stomach more wine today) and pie after pie arriving to our table – procuitto and pancetta and mushrooms and anchovies and calamari and fried eggs and olives and salamis and zucchini and eggplant and peppers and cherry tomatoes -- you name it we had it on pizza tonight. It was heaven.



The last pizza was a dessert pizza made of nutella (a sweet hazelnut spread) and marscapone cheese (what is known as the Italian cream cheese).

Survivor Tuscany

I’m a little tipsy. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or exhaustion. We started with white wine infused with sliced peaches before dinner, red wine with dinner, and we ended with limoncello . . . that we made ourselves! It could definitely be the alcohol, but what a day.

We were out by 9 am when Valter took us on a walking tour of Lucca and its city wall which was built in the 12th or 13th century to keep out neighboring factions like the Pisans. It is quite high and quite thick and still completely encloses the old city center.



We met Roberto in his shop where he sells meats and cheeses and things fantastical, and he and Valter, in cahoots, showed off his wares. “Try this parmesan reggiano. Try this pecorino (sheep’s milk cheese). Note how it’s different than this pecorino which has been aged longer. You must try this carpaccio of beef, this prociutto, this salami of wild boar, this truffle butter , this paste of olive oil and garlic, this mortadello . . . “

Here is a pic of Valter and Roberto, and a pic of me cutting a piece of the huge mortadella, which is sorta like a balony, but instead of pimento, pistachio . . . yup pistachio.



And here’s everyone – the handsome Chef Valter with the ladies and the gentlemen.

We returned to the villa to learn how to make pasta. We each started with a pile of flour in front of us, then made a well in the center where we cracked two eggs, added a pinch of salt, and got our hands dirty. We kneaded and kneaded and then all took turns at the Kitchen Aid using the pasta attachments (why not use technology?), spitting out with varying success different kinds of pasta.

We made tagliatini (fresh square spaghetti), ravioli, and sheets of lasagna, for a very special lasagna that we will be eating later in the week (I’ll just tease you a bit and tell you it has hard boiled eggs and smoked mozzarella in it).

Here is our pasta workshop.

Lunch was our pasta, followed by a spectacular cheese plate for dessert. We were instructed to eat it counter-clock wise. The cheese all had incredible names that I can’t remember, but the first was mild and soft and served with green grapes, the second was a little stronger with a dark red rind because it had been soaked in red wine served with a pear, the third was a pecorino served with an onion jam that we had made that afternoon (my favorite), and the fourth was a blue cheese served with a spicy chili pepper jam.



After lunch, we took a short 30 minute drive into Pisa, and yes, that tower is leaning. Pisa was a rich, influential port town and the tower was built as nothing more than a status symbol, something special to display the town's wealth. The first architect was fired after the first three tiers were constructed and they began to lean -- the tower was built unknowingly on an ancient river bed of unstable sand. One hundred years went by and Pisa again decided to take up construction on the tower and an architect was brought in to try to rectify the leaning. He added two more tiers trying to correct for the lean with columns longer on one side than the other. A third architect added the final two tiers and the belfry another century later and if you look at the final three layers, they are actually straight. So the tower is less a leaning structure, and more a banana-shaped one.

And after Pisa, we returned for more class.

We made dinner:

Spelt soup – sounds so simple, but was amazingly rich and complex with beans and spelt (a grain, also known as faro), and pancetta and onion and sage and yum.
Eggplant parmigiana
Amaretto Peaches with Cinnamon Ice-Cream – yes we also made ice cream.

Here's some of us after relaxing a bit after class, before sitting down to eat.



It’s wacky being thrown together so intimately with these other people. We’re going to know each other very well by the end of the week. It’s like one of those reality shows. What happens when 10 strangers are picked to live in a house, cook together, and have their vacations intertwined? Find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real.

Well, most of them are from the tri-state area, so polite is already out the window. They will undoubtedly drive me crazy, but I think I could love them like family.

Tips of the day
#1: Always pair cheese with an accompaniment that matches the cheese in power – neither should overwhelm the other. A mild cheese with a mild accompaniment, a strong cheese with a strong one.

#2: Make your own limoncello! Fill a mason jar full of grain alcohol – in the Midwest, that’s Everclear – and put in it the zest of 6 lemons. Let sit a week, then strain. Combine juice with a simple syrup (1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, boiled until sugar dissolves, let cool), seal in a bottle, and keep in the freezer.

The Medicis got nothing on me . . .

I was picked up this morning with several other of my classmates and driven to the town of Lucca, specifically the village of Vorno, an hours drive west of Florence, for 6 days of cooking classes with The Tuscan Chef.

Casa Felice Matteucci, the villa where we are living and cooking, dates back to the first half of the 17th century. The estate became home to the man who invented the stroke engine (Matteucci), which was a prototype to the motorcar, and includes a family chapel, olive oil press, mill and servants quarters, most of which have been renovated by a local Italian family who are one of Italy’s biggest cheese producers. This villa was a farmhouse but a decade ago housing John Deere tractors – that’s what they said – John Deere! It seems it was in quite a state of disrepair -- ceiling caving in, walls collapsing -- and it has been turned into this breathtaking place. Somebody pinch me.



Here are the views from my windows, a pool out the back, and on the side, those very light green trees on the terraced hill are olive trees.



Click here to see more pics of the villa and the rest of the estate.

I wanted to say a special hello to my grandmother who is reading. I took these pictures of the chapel thinking of you.



There are 10 of us – Emmit and Joanne from the Boston area, Tom and Debbie from New Jersey, Diane and David from Connecticut, and a daughter, mother, aunt combo, Dana, Teeda, and Angie from Connecticut, North Carolina, and Florida respectively. All of us East Coasters. We got to know each other over a lunch buffet and some wine.



Here are our hosts Chef Valter Roman (pronounced Walter), his wife Julia, and William their 3-year old is on his lap. They also have a 4 year old, Olivia. Julia is from northern England and it seems they met while working in the hotel industry, she in sales, and he as a pastry chef.



After a couple of hours of settling in, we were in the kitchen and we had our first class. We made our dinner.

Zucchini flowers stuffed with a filling of ricotta, parmesan cheese, and parsley, accompanied by a crisped parmesan basket of rucola
Porcini mushroom risotto
Almond biscotti with Vin Santo

Here are the zucchini flowers battered and fried and our biscotti which we dipped in Vin Santo – a sweet “holy” wine made from grapes that have been dried for months prior to fermentation.



Chef Valter is ardent about local ingredients and quality, and he makes his points with that arrogance that is exactly as you would want from a man passionate about food. He has already stated twice that the problem with the United States is that it is too big, and one can’t control quality when one has to produce 10 million units of something and then ship it 3000 miles.

Tips of the Day
#1: When making vegetable or chicken stock (for the mushroom risotto in this case), slice onions width-wise, leaving their skins on, and grill them a few minutes cut side down, until black grill marks appear, and then toss them, skins still on, in the water with your carrots, celery, etc. The grilling removes the bite from the onion, sweetening it, and the skin colors the stock a lovely caramel.

#2: Risotto should be cooked for 18 minutes no more. At 16 minutes remove it from the heat.

No really, pinch me.