It's time to do me!: Pizza and Gelato at In Tavola

March 3, 2011

So this morning I got up a little early so I could review my Roman Achievement stuff one more time. When we got our test I was a little overwhelmed because it was such a thick test, but once I started to look at the questions I had no clue why I felt overwhelmed…I knew this stuff! And her setup for the test was really nice; there was a mix of multiple choice, fill in the blanks, short answer, matching, identify the artwork, pinpoint places on a map…basically a little bit of everything. I got stumped on a couple questions, but the more and more I read it and thought about it I ended up figuring it out and felt extremely confident about the test when I turned it in. Of course there will always be those few questions that you are on the fence about, but I didn’t care anymore because it was done and over with and I could breathe now!

The rest of the day seems like a blur. One thing I do know is that we went to the Basilica of San Lorenzo for art history, which we found out was another structure paid for (secretly) by the ever so wealthy Medici family. The Medici paid for a sacristy to be built here, which obviously was private since only the priests and Medici family could enter. Since the room was a private space, porphyry (that purple marble that I saw in Rome) was found in the sacristy, an obvious sign of the great wealth of the Medici family. Rocky went on to explain more about the basilica of course, but that was the part I found most interesting…and actually the only part I can remember about the visit right now. But I do remember it was gorgeous and the symmetry of the building makes it Romanesque.

I think I just had on my brain the fact that tonight is another cooking class at In Tavola! We had to meet at the school at 6 to walk over to the kitchen for “Pizza and Gelato”…I was pumped! Once we got there we had to hang up our coats, put on our plastic aprons, and wash our hands just like last time. We already knew that we were making pizza and gelato, but we had no clue what kind of gelato or pizza. We were told that we were going to make a banana sorbet and stracciatella gelato and margherita pizza. My side of the kitchen was in charge of the banana sorbet while the other side made the stracciatella (which is actually one of my all time favorite flavors of gelato!). I was handed this tall plastic pitcher with bananas cut up into it and a hand blender and had to start smashing and blending the bananas. They slowly added in this sugar water and a few other ingredients which started to turn out and look like a banana smoothie or something. I had to blend like nonstop and my arms were killing me…the guys told me I was getting my workout for the day! But all of a sudden they told me to stop and the head chef Fabrizio stuck a spoon in the mixture and made me taste it and asked me if it was good. I told him it was good and he looked at my mixture to inspect it for lumps to see how well I did. I kept staring at him when all of a sudden he was like “Brava!” and he told us we would put the mixture into the refrigerator before putting it into the ice cream machine.

Once our gelato was made we were surprised by being told that we were going to be making sweet salami. We all were highly disgusted when we first heard this because of course we thought we were going to be doing something with salami the meat and making it into a dessert or something, but we took these cookies and crushed them up into small pieces and ended up making almost like a chocolate-y pudding and mixing the cookies into it which made it really dry and crumbly. We each were given a piece of foil and had to scoop the crumbled mixture into our foil and form a log and a roll it up like a salami roll. Our cook told us that he was going to throw it in the refrigerator for us, and by the time we were ready to eat it will be hard and when you go to cut it it will have white spots in the chocolate just like salami…”sweet salami”. It all made sense now.

Next we were taught how to make the dough using yeast, but our cooks told us that the pizza is better when the dough is made the day before because it will be more easily digestible. So unfortunately we wouldn’t be making our own dough, but we at least learned how to make the dough for future use of the recipe. I asked our cook if they toss the dough and he told me that he didn’t and didn’t think anyone else did, but he went on to ask one of his colleagues and he said he could but never does. They all were so curious why I asked and I told them I worked in a pizza place for like two years and I could toss dough. They were so intrigued by this, so they brought out the dough balls for everyone to make their pizza and they guys were giving me a hard time and couldn’t wait for my show…our cook even asked me if I would prefer an audience or not. Just like old times I stretched it out a little on the table and then whoop there it went up in the air and I was tossing it like a pro…I’d say everyone was quite impressed, I may have even blushed a little. Haha. It actually really made me miss Bruno’s..making pizzas was such a big part of my life for a while! Once everyone had their dough stretched out and into their pan we put sauce on our pizza, but we weren’t allowed to put the mozzarella on top because they said we had to put it on halfway through the process otherwise the cheese would burn. When it was half baked the guys brought out our hot pizzas and we were given mozzarella balls which we could break up in whatever way we wanted on top of our pizza. A couple of the groups put basil down on top of their pizza before the cheese, but our chef told us that he prefers it to be placed on top of the pizza after it has been cooked. So after we had put our mozzarella on top we plopped our pizzas back into the oven to finish cooking.

In the meantime our gelato mixture was put into the ice cream machine for about 20 minutes and once it was done they put it into a container and threw it into the freezer while the stracciatella mixture was put into the machine. When we were all finishing our pizzas and they were finishing up cooking the stracciatella was just finishing. Now, stracciatella is like a vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, but we never saw any chocolate being put into the ice cream machine. But we learned the trick of the trade! One person takes a scoop of the vanilla out of the ice cream machine and another person drizzles a hefty spoonful of warm chocolate overtop of the scoop. They continue alternating between a scoop of ice cream and a drizzle of chocolate until all of the gelato is into the container. You could tell that the chocolate was hardening when it hit the cold gelato which made the chocolate the same consistency as chocolate chips, but the small pieces of chocolate made sense once Fabrizio took this paddle and started stabbing the ice cream to break up the chocolate. After a few stabs we had finished stracciatella gelato!

We were able to unroll our sweet salami and cut it up while we were waiting on our pizza, and I was surprised how yummy just a few simple ingredients were! We piled our salami all up on one plate and were told to head downstairs to the eating area. We were diving into our big pile of sweet salami when all of a sudden the chefs started to bring us down our pizzas. Each table was given 3 pizzas to start off with, and both the pizza with the basil underneath the cheese and the pizza with the basil put on the pizza after it had cooked were put onto each table so we could taste the difference and decide which one we preferred. I personally preferred the pizzas with the basil underneath the cheese, but either way they both were fabulous and we devoured the pizza! Too too good! But of course everyone was anticipating the gelato and we were given little bowls with a scoop of each in it. I typically don’t like banana-flavored things, but the banana sorbet was OUT OF THIS WORLD! I honestly don’t know if I have ever had such great tasting ice cream in my entire life! And the stracciatella of course was amazing…I was speechless with an empty bowl almost instantly. Luckily Fabrizio started bringing the containers of stracciatella and banana sorbet around asking if we wanted more, and of course I said yes to both…how could I not!?

Through small talk we found out that one of the chefs has family living in Cleveland and they have a gelato shop there!! We all were so curious where this gelato shop was and what it was called because if we are ever missing Italy once we are back in the States we thought a trip to this gelato shop would be the perfect fix! And of course if his family is anything like him and his talents, we knew it HAD to be absolutely delicious! He told us that the name was just simply La Gelateria and it was in Legacy Village. So, if you’re at home and wanting a taste of Italy, I think making a stop at La Gelateria would be more than worth it!

After everyone’s bellies were full and we got all of the info from the chef about his family’s gelato shop, we said our thank-you’s and headed back home and into bed…tomorrow would be an early morning!