Italian Food: So much more than pasta and pizza

I use to think that I would never meet a better cook than my Spanish host mom, Carmen. And then I met Daniela.  One of the first things Daniela asked me was "what are you willing to eat?" That is a pretty intimidating question.  I really don't I would want to eat any sort of traditional Italian horse testicle soup (if there is such a thing) but I told her that I would eat anything she wants to cook for me.  I can't even tell you how happy that made her.  Apparently the girls that lived with her last year only ate pizza and pasta and according to her that is not "really Italian cooking".   My favorite meal that she has cooked for us has been Piadina.  It's a flat bread that is typical of the region where Daniela was born (Emilia-Romagna) and it can be served with just about anything.  I wish I had a picture of it but it was so good we ate it all before even thinking about picking up a camera. 

This past Tuesday, we got to take a cooking class with an Italian chef.  The chef who taught the class is currently a 3 star chef and throughout his career he's cooked for people like Madonna and the Pope.  For this class we learned how to make three different types of pasta (gnocchi, ravioli and tagliatelle).  It was a lot easier to make pasta than I expected it to be and the ingredients are really simple.

Our cooking stations

Don't worry, I wore an apron

In the process

Finished pastas

 

Venezia, La citta su acqua

This past weekend I went to Venice with a group of 8 fellow students from my program.  We left Arezzo on a train around noon Saturday, got to Venice around 3:30pm and left at 6:30 the next day to get back to Arezzo for school the next day.

 

photo from a friends Facebook page 

 

Venice is on of the few cities I've been to where it's beautiful as soon as you step out of the train station.

 

 

Our first mission, after we got off the train was to find some lunch, which was a lot hard than it sounds because many places were closed for the afternoon but we ended up finding a nice place to have some pizza. We didn't try this "American" pizza with eggs and bacon but the pepperoni pizza I had was very good.

 

 

After lunch we made our way to Piazza San Marco. It was a pretty long walk but there was so much to see along the way, it wasn't too bad.

 

Rialto Bridge

Carnivale masks in progress

 

Piazza San Marco is a huge plaza with many important things all clumped together. There is the San Marco Basilica.  Unfortunately we never got to go in due to our timing.

 

 

One of my favorite sites of the trip was the Piazza San Marco clock tower.  It has balls that move to show the phases of the moon and it is rung by mechanical statues.

 

 

While at Piazza San Marco, we took an elevator to the top of another tower to get some great views of the city.

 

 

Right around the corner was the Bridge of Sighs which use to be used to transport prisoners from the prison to the execution spot.

 

After that we walked back to the train station to catch a shuttle bus to our hostel. The next day we took a water taxi to the island of Murano.  They have been blowing glass on this island for over 700 years.  I did buy some of the glass but most of what I bought was gifts so I won't show you much.  I'll will show you this bracelet I bought though.

 

The owner of the store I went to made everything himself. We walked through this island for most of the day.  It was much more relaxing than Venice because not many tourist were there.

Friends Facebook photo

 

 

After we got done at Murano we tried to go back to San Marco to go inside but there was a really long line of people waiting to get in and no one really wanted to wait so we walked back to the train station and had lunch on the Grand Canal.

 

 

It was a great trip.  Our next trip is with the school.  We are heading to Florence this Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 



Italy: Week 1

Sunday June 2nd:  I got to Arezzo!!!! Then immediately went on a tour of the city with the group and then we all went out to dinner.  We had some really great pizza. I didn't take many pictures because I was so tired from traveling that I totally forgot to take my camera out. I'll remember to take some later.  After dinner, we went home and I finally meet my host mom!  I am staying in a really nice apartment with a woman named Daniella.  Her husband is a sailor and he's in Greece right now and her children are all married and living on their own so it's just us and my roommate, Brittany.  I told her that any weekend she wanted to go visit her husband, I would be happy to go with her.

Monday June 3rd:  Classes started.  My class load is pretty light.  I am taking an Italian culture class that everyone in my program is taking and I am taking an Italian independent study class.  For that I have to keep a blog for the trip.  I can write about anything I want, it just has to be in Italian and I will be given a word limit I have to reach.  If anyone wants to see that you can find it here.

Wednesday June 5th:  We went to a wine tasting.  The vineyard we went to is called La Striscia and we got a tour of the vineyard and tried three different types of wine.  We learned all about the wine making process and how to the alcohol content or type of grape by looking at the color and if it leaves legs on the glass.  I also learned that wine companies sometimes like to make dry wines because it dries out the back of your throat and you want to drink more.  My favorite was the Chianti so I bought a bottle.  I'm hoping to get this bottle back the the States but I might need to drink it before then.

Saturday June 8th:  8 out of the eleven of us decided to go to Venice for the weekend! It was a beautiful city but it deserves it's own post so I'll talk about that later.  I will say we all had a really good time and it was great getting to know the group a little bit better.