Allora...

Bueno sera! Which is a greeting given after 1pm or after 3pm, depending on who you ask. Begore that its buon giorno. Its been a few days since my last post so I hope i havent lost any readers! Its still really nice here, warm morning that turn into hot days and humid nights. The nights here seem to last forever, not because its light like Alaska, but because people are always out and theres so much going on at night. The outdoor restaurants are full of people sitting down to 3 course meals at 10 pm! And Italian dinners are supposed to last for a long time. That is on thing that as an American is hard to get used too. Im so used to jumping up from a meal the second I'm finished and rushing off. Not just because thats the way it is at fast food places and restaurants ( where they rush you out) but at homes also. Sure once in a while we'd sit down to a nice long meal on holidays but usually its small talk eat and jump up. Ive gone too a few restaurants (not too many tho, gotta save $) and I still havent gotten the 3 hour meal down. It's hard to describe but i have a feeling that i should be getting up and doing something. Same with the aftenoon nap. Sounds great but its actually hard to get used to. Maybe a couple monthe in Ill be taking long lunches and naps.

So what did I do the last few days? The pics i posted last time were from a walk I took saturday. If you want to google eath where I am i live on via san zanobi in florence italy. Anyway I walked from my flat, over one of the Arno bridges and into the hills around florence. It was pretty cool to get away from the scenery ive been in and into a more residential are. The houses are still really old looking but have been updated with satellite dishes, cameras, and other modern gadgets. The road was pretty steep up through the residential area and reminded me of San Francisco. On my left side there was a wall that looked to be hundreds of years old and still looked strong. As i went higher up the hill the land became more open and I saw large rolling hills with trees id never seen before, large villas and wine fields. There were lots of little lizards on the stone walls ( i included a picture of one, click on it and you can see). That was my saturday.

Sunday most places are closed so we cleaned the apartment and did some laundry. About 8 pm we went to an Irish pub (red garter) to watch some american football. The place was full of loud American students and served strange cheeseburgers and oily fries. It was good to see the games tho.

Monday, school again. Weekdays is where it turns into a cooking blog. In my traditions of italian cooking we made sformatino di zucchine (zucchini flan) and Pesto di Radicchio Rosso (pesto of radicchio). I forgot my camera but i can tell you it was very good. To make the flan we chopped celery and parsely and sauted in olive oil. (im half olive oil already) Next you add sliced zucchini, season with salt and pepper and cook until zuchini is soft. While that is cooking you make a bechamel (kind of a thickener) out of butter and flour with a little nutmeg. Add that into your cooking zucchini and them puree. Add in parmesan and eggs and puree some more. Place in a little tin coated in butter and corn meal and bake. The pesto was pretty easy too. Using a radicchio plant, pine nute, parmegiano, pecorino romano, olive oil, garlic and salt we made a very different but tasty pesto. When the flan was done we made a bed of the pesto and laid the flan on top. The sweetness mixed very well with the bitterness of the flan. If you want the complete recipe or any other i write about email me. After class i went home and hung out for a while. The school had organized a sports night and this week I was going to get there on time so I could get some exercise. Me and my roommate mario went. It was about a 20 minute walk to the FUA (Florence university of the Arts) campus that everyone met up at. Once we were all there we proceded to walk to the same place basketball is at, which is about a 30 minut walk, all along the Arno. Im going to have to post a video about the driving here because its crazy. They drive very fast, but everyone seems to know what theyre doing. Its definitely the opposite of the pedestrians have the right away system the U.S. has. You have to be very aware of whats going on or you will probably get hit. Sports night was fun, we played volleyball for a little bit, then soccer. Not only did I get some exercise but I met some new people. If im going to live here ive got to make some contacts and build a network. Plus its good to meet new people. By the time me and mario walked home it was 12:30. Luckily i live with cooks. We had stuffed tomatoes and sundried tomato pasta waiting.

Today (tuesday) my first class was at 9am and was introduction to professional cooking. This class was taught by the head chef at Apicius, a very thorough man who takes time with everyone and makes sure you have each skill down before he moves on, which i think is a very effective teaching style. Today we were going to learn how to use our chef's knives. As part of the lab fee i paid we recieved a set of 4 knives. A large vegetable knive, a meat knife, a filet knife and a little multipurpose curved knife. We were going to be makeing Italian minestrone soup. There were so many veggies that it was a perfect recipe to practice our cutting skills. The veggies we used were: onion, garlic, leeks, parsley, carrots, celery, potatoes, tomatoes, borlotti beans, red beans, cabbage, peas, zucchini, pumpkin, spinach, basil, rice and some parmigiano on top. We learned the correct stance, hand position, cutting style and much more. The veggies went into the pot in the order of the amout of time it would take them too cook. Water was also added. The soup was much different than any minestrone id ever had but it tasted great. Eveeything was fresh and perfect. If you make it dont be afraid to add lots of salt and olive oil. Chef made me add salt a few times.

My second class today was wine appreciation. This is one of my favorite teachers. Carlotta is an energetic, funny lady that knows what shes talking about. We reviewed some from the last class about how wines are organized in italy and then began talking about how to analize wine. We would be going over visual, olfactory and gustative analysis. Today was visual. Carlotta talked for a while about what you can learn about wine from looking at it. She said that although you cant figure out everything from just looking you can learn some inportant things. The things you judge from looking are : color. If its a white is it greenish yellow, straw yellow, golden yellow or amber. If its a Rose is it soft red, cherry red or dark red. If its a red is it purple red, ruby, garnette or orange red. Next was limpidity, or how well you can see through the wine. Here the classifications were veiled, quite limpid, limpid, crystal clear and brilliant. After that was Fluidity. Was the wine watery, fluid, quite flowing, quite thick or thick/oily. For sparkling wines there was an effervescence scale also. Some other things you can judge just from looking are: if its white darker means an older wine or a wine that was aged in wood (such as oak) while a lighter shade is a young wine. For reds its usually the opposite. Paler reds are older (due to oxidation) and darker reds are young to ready in age. For both red and white a darker shade can mean that the grape is from a warmer climate. Another visual analytical technique is when you swirl your glass watch the residue as it falls. The more "tears" or wave shapes means thicker wine, usually with a higher alchohol content. The wines we drank today were: 1st a white Orvieto Campogrande DOC ( DOC is a classification in Italian wines. the classifications are in a pyramid shape with table wines on the bottom, IDTG next, DOC after that, and DOCG on top. This classification system keeps up standards and limits production for the DOC and DOCG wines, DOCG being the most restricted) vintage 2006 and made in Umbria Italy. Color was light straw yellow with a crytal clear limpidity and a fluid fluidity. Were all going to be expert wine tasters together! 2nd was a Rose wine, a Bolgheri DOC made in Tuscany. Color cherry red, limpidity crystal clear and fluid. Last was a red Chianti DOCG 2006 made in Chianti (as all chianti's are)

And thats been my day. Im getting ready to explore before dinner and find some more things to take picture of for you guys. Thanks for reading, I'll try to post more regularly. Ciao

P.S. i'm putting some pics on bottom that dont have anything to do with this post. Including an Italian fire truck for my Big bro and poppa to be Ian and my favorite Kabob




place.