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.