Thursday, 22 March 2012
Part 3: Eating and Cooking
After some nice strong espresso-grind coffee, and a leisurely morning... we had a decision to make: should we do an excursion north to a large nearby city, Arezzo... or south to a smaller town near a lake, Chiusi. Since the weather was so nice, we decided the lake sounded interesting, plus we read about a restaurant that served local lake fish--pike, and had good reviews.
We jumped on the now-familiar A-1 toll road, noticing again that the road surface is perfect... no potholes, or cracks in the pavement and freshly painted lane markers (not that the Italian drivers pay any attention to them!) That's what you get when you have relatively high toll fees paying the freight for regular maintenance. In about 40 minutes we found Chiusi, and then the side road to "Lago di Chiusi."
As we got close to the end of our late lunch, an older man eating at one of the other tables asked where we were from, in slightly broken English. We told him and mentioned that we were staying near Cortona. (It's amazing... World wide when you say you are from San Francisco, people smile and say how much they like our town, Golden Gate, Pier 39!" He also made a remark about owning a home with a pool in Rome, and "perhaps some day we trade.". We smiled back, and Ronna noticed he was holding a package of Marlboro's. "No smokers" she said to me, "and I don't like house trades!"
After our meal, we drove from the Lake into the Central part of Chiusi and found a good free parking lot near the main street. Chiusi is quintessential old world village... narrow streets and alleys, steep steps leading to hidden courtyards, impressive ancient double doors leading to unknown residential worlds.
We satisfied our post-lunch sweet tooth with some yummy gelato at a cute spot with a pleasant outdoor patio. We also checked out the historic central church, old-time theatre, panormic vistas and interesting villagers walking and driving by.
After our huge lunch, we didn't want a big dinner not so, a little more wine with local salumi and pecorino, a small rustic grilled cheese sandwich, and the watching of the DVD of Martin Scorcese's "Gangs of New York," completed our evening.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Today was cooking school day. Earlier in the week, we discovered a picturesque old restaurant and B&B along the road to Farneta, Poggio Sant' Angelo, with the universal symbol of cooking schools out front: A cute little statue of a fat chef standing on the side of the road. We asked Elga, and she made arrangements for our personal class at 11 am today.
We met the manager of the restaurant, Luigi, and his new chef, Anna. After some espresso and an explanation of the plan for the day, we had a tour of the vegetable garden to pick some dark kale-like cabbage to be used in our appetizer course... which was to be two types of Bruscetta, the second being comprised of white beans and tomatoes. We were also joined by Luca, local tour guide and gardener, and learned that the vegetables in this new garden prosper because they grow many different varieties cheek by jowl in a circular mounded area. Right next to each other were many lettuces, garlic, cabbage, flowers, onions, herbs and more all helping each other grow by warding off parasites and nurturing each other. The veggies certainly seemed to like the arrangement, and we cut four big stalks of cabbage for our cooking.
In addition to the Bruscetta appetizers, we made two other types of bread, fresh homemade tagliatelle pasta, a sausage and beef ragu pasta sauce, potato torte, pork tenderloin with cippolini onions, and a sweet chocolate and almond biscotti. Whew!
Anna had worked with Luigi at another restaurant of his and had only been here at Poggio Sant' Angelo for a few weeks. The tourist season in this part of Tuscany doesn't really get humming until about the first of April, so we were their first cooking class of the season.
They were both charming and knowledgeable, with Luigi translating most phrases that Anna would utter that we couldn't understand completely. We also learned several new preparation tricks, and are looking forward to reproducing these nice dishes at home in San Francisco for family and friends.
As we completed cooking each course, we would sit down in the dining room and feast, accompanied first by some Prosecco, then a nice local red white and ending with our fresh made biscotti Cantuccini dipped in Vin Santo. We returned to the kitchen to help with the preparation for each course! So fun!
It was almost 4 pm when our food marathon finally ended. We rolled to our car to go back to VP for a big nap!
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