It's time to do me!: Cooking lessons at In Travola!

January 27^th, 2011

This morning in Roman Achievement we compared the U.S. government with the Roman government and it was so surprising to see how the two were so similar! It seems as if the two governments have roughly the same idea in having executive, legislative, and judicial powers, with roughly the same number of representatives in each branch, but the term for the representatives is where the governments differ – in the Italian government many officials will only hold office for like one or two years, but many can continue running for the same position multiple times unlike our limited two term Presidency in the U.S. Once again, I’m surprised at how much I enjoy history and this class here! After Roman Achievement we had our first Italian quiz and I think I did extremely well! The only thing I didn’t know was how to say “downtown,” which I have learned now is “centro.”

For art history we had to meet in front of Santa Croce today for our ‘on-site’ lecture. Rocky sat our class down on the steps outside of the church and explained the different dates and background information of the church before we actually entered. Once we did enter though everyone’s jaws dropped. The church is massive and the ceilings seem to extend for forever and there is even painted decoration on the ceiling panels! The church had a ton of tombs inside of it and contained the frescoes explaining St. Francis of Assisi’s life, which we learned about on Tuesday. Back in the day families wanted to be buried in the church..it was a huge honor, and the richest families were able to buy the “better” burial spots which were the ones closest to the altar. It was kinda creepy walking around the church because it is hard to avoid walking on top of tombs which are resembled by these marble rectangles on the ground, and some of the rectangles had a smaller oval which could be removed to put the next deceased member of the family in the same tomb. Some tombs were on the walls, some of which are popular people in the past like Michelangelo and Galileo! The frescoes of St. Francis were really neat, especially because we weren’t blindly looking at them…we actually understood what they stood for and the meaning behind them. This fact makes me think of how many famous statues, monuments, buildings, paintings, etc. that I have walked by here and it was probably something so important in history and I just was like “oh that’s pretty.” I really don’t like not knowing the history behind things and makes me appreciate history so much more! I forgot to take my camera, so I definitely want to go back, even if I do have to pay to get in next time, just to document the beauty and ancient history of the church.

After we walked around the church a little more once our class was dismissed we came back to the apartment to relax before our cooking lessons! In the time we had before our cooking lessons we ended up booking our hostels for Paris and Barcelona so those trips are officially all planned which is so exciting! We had to meet at the school at 7, and our one faculty member Petra took us to In Travola so we could start learning and cooking! There were about 20 of us that went and we were split into 4 groups of 5, and each group had their own countertop and cooking ingredients. There were 3 private chefs that taught us, and my group (who consisted of me, Marissa, Danielle, Lauren, and Chris) was taught by Fabrizio..the boss! The first thing we made was Tiramisu because we had to let it chill for an hour before eating. We made personal size things of tiramisu which was SO EASY to make..like why have I never investigated making tiramisu before!? But then we started making our appetizers which were called Vegetable Millefoglie. We took an eggplant and sliced it into about quarter inch slices, and in a bowl mixed some finely chopped zucchini, a potato which we pressed through this thing and made it kinda into mashed potatoes, salt, pepper, oregano, and olive oil. We then put down a slice of eggplant, rolled a scoop of the mixture into a ball, put the ball on the slice, put a piece of cheese on top of the ball, and then put another slice of eggplant on top and pressed it flat. You ended up doing that again so there were 3 slices of eggplant high in total, sprinkled some parmesan on top with some olive oil and then we baked them. I didn’t even think I liked eggplant, but they turned out so beautiful and were so incredibly tasty!! For our main dish we made gnocchi by hand!! We basically had to make the dough which is basically just potato, flour, cornstarch, an egg yolk, and tad of nutmeg, salt, and pepper. We were going to end up eating two different kinds of sauce with the gnocchi, but my group would be making one, and another would be making the other. We made the tomato, basil and garlic sauce which was just basically as the name says: we chopped tomatoes into large pieces, threw them in a pan with some olive oil, 2 things of garlic whole, and some basil with pepper and salt…that’s all! The other group made Ragu alla Bolognese (meat sauce). Both of the sauces were AMAZING!..I honestly couldn’t pick one over the other, although all the girls who were meat eaters said they enjoyed the ragu better. Once we finished our appetizers and main dishes we finally got to eat our tiramisu which was out of this world!!! I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have a feast for everyone when I get back because we got a copy of all of the recipes and it will knock everyone’s socks off!

After we left In Travola we all decided to go out together so we ended up going to two different bars and a dancing club. The first bar was a karaoke bar and it was so American…and supposively each college from the states that has had students studying here has a specialty shot at the bar..so of course I had to get a “Kent Stater.” The second bar we went to had a crazy entertainer behind the bar who was dressed like a pirate…he was so crazy but so much fun! And the dance club we went to was super packed, but it was a lot of fun and played a bunch of good American songs. From the church in Santa Croce to homemade tiramisu to dancing the night away…it was a FABULOUS fabulous day! BUT to top it all off, when I came home from the club I got on my computer real quick and my one friend Brittani who I will be living with next year started skypeing me and we skyped until it was 6 a.m. here! This time difference is seriously getting to me!