Someone's In the Kitchen

Sam teased me when I hesitated when he asked me what kind of chicken recipes I could whip up this weekend, and that hurt (come on, our family is a red meat kind of family! The only chicken recipe I knew I could whip up out of thin air was my favorite grilled chicken with the pasta!), so to prove him the inferior cook I impulsively signed up for an Italian cooking class Monday afternoon! Student Life

Our handmade pasta

offers four of these cooking classes right in Villa Rossa (which apparently has a secret kitchen located under the Language classrooms!) for only 20 euro, which provides you with a 4 course meal and hands on instruction.  Sign ups had started that morning, but after talking to my friend Tim in my Italian class, I was 100% convinced that this was something I wanted to do, so I ran to the Student Life Offices, and there had been a last minute cancellation and I got the very last spot. Awesome. I called Anna and told her I wasn't coming home for dinner and met the cooking class at 5:30. 

Ravioli with sage and butter sauce

Jacopo was our chef, and he taught us how to make homemade pasta (from scratch, it was SO COOL) and roll the dough for spinach ravioli (severed with a butter and sage sauce), tagliatelle which sort of looks like fettuccine, and tagliolini which sort of looks like angel hair. We made the dessert while some people were kneading the pasta dough (tiramisu!) from scratch as well. We worked on the sauces, cutting vegetables, sauteing vegetables, steaming vegetables, mashing the sauteed vegetables into a puree...it was so cool. I paid most attention to the sauces which I figured would be easier to replicate than homemade pasta. We made a tomato sauce with plum tomatoes, garlic, carrots, celery,
red onion, and virgin olive oil, and mushed it all up until it wasn't chunky, then chopped up some basil and let that simmer. That tomato sauce went with the tagliolini (angel hair). We also made a pepper cream sauce with roasted peppers, garlic, olive oil, and cream. That went with the tagliatelle (fettuccine).

It was THE BEST food I've eaten since I've been here. Everything was so flavorful and fresh and delightful. I had so much fun. I didn't sign up with anyone I knew so I made friends with a bunch of people, and am probably going on a wine tasting trip this weekend with a girl from Bucknell (Joanna) and her roommate from Santa Clara (Brianna). It was great. It did run a little later than I expected, though, so I didn't get home til about 11.