Tuesday at the Table

Well, I've been meaning to chronicle the cooking class hubby and I took while we were in Italy, so before too much time passes, here's what I remember.

We were with our tour group, having spent the morning at an Etruscan Museum in Chianciano Terme, heading to the Chianti countryside for a couple of nights. En route, we stopped at Agriturismo La Pietriccia, where chef Stefano met us in the driveway.

I confess, I'd been looking forward to this since our trip began. To be cooking, in Italy, alongside an Italian chef, sounded too good to be true.

We all gathered in a large room, set up for demonstration and prep work at one end, and for gathering around our meal at the other.

The routine was simple to follow. Chef Stefano would "show and tell" a dish, then direct folks to continue on with that task, as he and the rest of us went on to prep the next dish.

Hubby was the first one to get assigned, working with the chef's brother on our appetizer and dessert. Without really meaning to, I remained unassigned for much of our class, which meant I got to see chef demo almost everything. Which was very cool for a foodie like me. Eventually though, it was my turn, and my dish was ricotta gnocchi.

I had made potato gnocchi once ages ago, but had never made or even tasted ricotta gnocchi. And though the ingredients are quite simple (ricotta, flour, and salt), the technique is a little tricky. In fact it took me a few tries to get it right, but finally I did. Ideally though, this type of gnocchi should be dropped into boiling water as they are formed, which wasn't really possible in class. So after a bit, chef added more flour to all the dough, and showed us a different shape that stands up better, and what you'll see in the mosaic below.

At any rate, the class was alot of fun, and there wasn't a dish we made that I wouldn't be willing to try again at home.

Clockwise from upper left: 

Carrot Tartlet, Pici (handmade Sienese Pasta) with wild boar sauce, 

Ricotta Gnocchi, Potato Cake, Sausages, Cabbage Salad, 

Ricotta Lemon Tart served with the chef's own sweet wine

Indeed, the entire adventure proved just as fun - and tasty - as I'd imagined.

Tuesday at the Table

As you can imagine, there were countless memorable foodie moments when hubby and I were in Italy recently. And I can't promise that I won't share more of them in this space in the weeks ahead. For sure I want to reminisce about the cooking class we took in Tuscany. But for today, just a small moment in time, Italian-style.

It happened because after over a week of traveling, we were anxious to do some laundry in an actual laundromat, rather than our hotel's bathroom sink. And finally in Lucca, we had the opportunity and we took it. We got our load going and to bide our time, we stepped across the lane to De Cervesia's taproom, mentioned in passing by our tour guide as we'd walked into town earlier in the day.

There were just 3 beers on tap, and we chose the Duchessa, an Italian saison made with farro. Tiny as the shop was, we had no choice but to take our drinks out into the street.

Which wasn't really an issue, as that's what everyone else had done as well. The beer was tasty, don't get me wrong. And after a day of travel, to sit and sip it was a treat and a relief. But what really struck us was the sheer number of people on the sidewalk in front of the shop and spilling out into the street,  leaning against the buildings and sitting on the stoops. We actually counted over 75 including ourselves, just hanging out, sipping their drinks, and enjoying the summer evening.

It probably didn't even seem unusual to anyone except us. But in the moment, it felt significant. We had been transported somehow, and without intention, we were together at The Table, with no table in sight.

Tuesday at the Table

Have you ever felt like the whole world knew about something super tasty and you just found out? That was me after our recent trip to Italy and I did a Pinterest search on spritz aperol. I mean why hadn't anyone told us before? 

Luckily, we had discovered the Spritz in Venice at the beginning of our trip, so now we know and even though it might be considered a summer beverage, I couldn't take the risk of you not knowing about it!

The recipe is right on the back of the Aperol bottle, though it seems traditional to fiddle with the proportions, and we were rarely served a Spritz without at least some peanuts or chips - usually a quite nice array of muchies, which just added to the moment. But at any rate, spritzing our way through Italy was great fun, and it hasn't been forgotten even now that we are home. Just sayin'.