Cooking lesson

This morning Elena and I were quite tired for our Italian class because we all stayed up late last night, hanging out after dinner. Marco understood, and taught as “sono stanco” (I am tired) as a result! Plus, we went with him to MeetLife Café for coffee mid-class. Despite needing a pisalino (nap), class was good again, though our material is increasingly getting harder. For instance, today we started learning articles and distinguishing between masculine and feminine/ singular and plural words. After class, I socialized with Stella and two of her friends who are visiting from the U.S., Florence and Bob. They were very nice and met Stella years ago when she used to own a Bed and Breakfast in Tuscany. They have been coming back to Italy every year since. Also, the past two days have been beautiful, with weather in the high seventies during the day – finally the temperature we were all expecting! Then at 4:30, we all met at ­­­­Fonte Giusta for cooking lessons! The cooking lesson lasted 2 ½ hours and was so much fun. Only five us of went this time around because the kitchen is small and with the four chefs, it got crowded. The chefs did not speak English, but we quickly learned the Italian words for stir, knead, cut, etc. We learned how to make homemade pasta (ravioli, spaghetti, and tortellini), gnocchi, and almond cantucci (like biscotti). While we were cooking, we sampled fresh bread from the oven with olive oil and prosciutto. The ravioli and tortellini we made were stuffed with different mixes, such as spinach and cheese, eggplant and cheese, and meat, cream sauce. After we made the pasta dough and put it through the machine, we cut it into strips, stuffed it with the different mixes, and folded into differed orgami-type shapes that they taught us. The gnocchi had a tomato and meat sauce. When we sat down to eat after making all of this food, we had four courses of pasta, all of which we made! (This was after all of the bread we ate too.) They served us wine with dinner then brought out the cantucci for dessert. It was all delicious, but we were so full afterwards that we all had stomach aches! We seriously made enough food for 20 people! The plus-side was that we all took home two full trays of fresh pasta and gnocchi. When I got home, Stella, Ana Rose, and Leno had just finished dinner, so I talked to them for about an hour, with Ana Rose again acting as the translator. However, I can tell I have learned a lot more Italian that when I first met Leno, because I understood the gist of most that he said (Leno knows no English). So that was very exciting for me! Then Ana Rose and I made reservations for Cinque Terre this weekend, and at least five of the other girls are going too. That night, we all met in the Piazza del Campo to hang out and ended up seeing practically everyone we’ve met in Siena so far, including the chefs who taught our cooking lesson this evening! Friday we are going to San Gimignano for our Art and Architecture class, and Saturday through Sunday we will be in Cinque Terre (if all the travel goes as planned!).