A Day in the Life of Stage

I wake up every day at 8:50am. Today I pour some muesli cereal on top of a coffee flavored yogurt, which tastes exactly like Maui Babe smells, brush my teeth, and head off to sit on a bench on the main road in town and wait for someone to pick me up. This morning it's Alfred, a 40-year-old, very skinny man from the Philippines. Alfred works hard - he started as the dishwasher and worked his way up to appetizers. He speaks a fair amount of sometimes incomprehensible english, and has always been nice to me. Sometime we go down to the store room and sit on the freezers taking a impromptu break while he smokes a cigarette.

Outside the store room.

When I get in his car this morning he already has Abba playing. This CD has been on repeat in his CD player for the past two weeks and it still make me smile when he sings a long to songs from Mamma Mia.

We pass through the main road in town before turning off onto the very scenic and very narrow road that leads to Il Falconiere. I love the drive to work. Although, it can be a little nerve racking when the road is too narrow for two cars to pass, but it is beautiful as we pass an old church, a small waterfall, and the foliage lining the road is now full and in bloom.

We arrive a little after 9:30am and change for the day - I put on my chefs hat and strap on my apron and I'm ready. Today the sous chef, who I usually work with, is out for the morning, but he has left me a list of things to do. I love that I can just walk into the kitchen and start working. I don't have to wait for anyone, and no one will try and give me time consuming tasks that they don't want to do. And today, I'm especially happy because my main project is to make tagliatelle which I love doing. However, it wasn't always this way.

Everytime we had to make fresh pasta in New York, I hated it. But, when I came to Italy, I realized that it would be a valuable skill to leave with. So, at ALMA I took every opportunity to practice and took careful notice of how each chef rolled out pasta. Now, I am quite good at it, and I love doing it. It's a great feeling when the dough pours fourth from the machine in smooth, long, rectangles, like a thin blanket over my hands. Chef comes over to inspectmy work, he turns to me and says, "They are beautiful." This means a lot coming from Chef.

Me rolling out the pasta.

Cutting the the individual noodles.

My tagliatelle. The finished dish.

Since the sous chef is out today, it is my responsibility to make pasta for staff lunch. Today we use a cheese sauce made from leftover cheeses. There are some strong flavors mixed together, but is a good sauce for penne, served with eggplant, baccala - a white fish, and aspargus.

The outside patio where we eat lunch everyday.

Lunch service begins at 1pm. Today Chef has decided to man the pasta station while I finish making tagliatelle. However, my work only takes about 20 minutes. Chef dosen't need my help becuase it's not busy. It is then I realize my fate for the afternoon will be doing dishes. Our dish washer also has the day off, so someone has to do them. Oddly though, I find I like doing dishes here. It gives me something to do for the whole afternoon where no one can tell me that I've done it wrong or have to do it over. Also, because it's not my responsibility, everyone is extremely grateful that I volunteer to do them, because if it wasn't me, it would be them. So it's an easy way to score brownie points with everyone in the kitchen.

Back at my house in the afternoon.

For our afternoon siesta, we get out of the kitchen by 4pm, which gives me a good two hours to run and shower before going back at 6:30. I get home and quickly scarf down a banana before heading out into the warm afternoon that has become overcast with the slight threat of a storm. I run for 45 minutes using my traditional route on the main road of town, down a big hill, past the train station, and down a long, flat, dirt road that is usually vacant except for a few chickens that sucrry across as they hear me coming. I enjoy running on this secluded road that takes me out away from town because when I turn to go home I have a great view of Cortona standing proud and strong up on the hill as it has for many centuries.

A quick shower and I'm back out on the bench waiting for my ride. Tonight Alfred is off, which means Balla, my sous chef, will pick me up so I will most likely have to wait till seven. But out on my bench, I enjoy waiting. It's rush hour and I watch people heading home from work. Also, there is a tobacco shop on the same block which provides many subjects for people watching. These shops are so crucial to the Italian lifestyle that they have vending machines outside where locals can buy their tobacco and recharge their phones anytime of the day. Finally at five minutes to seven, Balla comes to get me.

Balla is the person I've bonded with the most here, probably because he speaks the best English, but also because we get along very well. He is a middle-aged man from Morocco, has a wife and three kids, and I think I see him more than they do. I am very grateful that he has been a part of my life here. I work with him the majority of the time in the kitchen and he always tells me that "I am number one" and he is very appreciative of my work. It serves as a great source of encouragement.

I love walking into work around dusk. The sun has begun to set casting a beautiful glow on the grounds. Il Falconiere is landscaped beautifully. My favorite part is how so much of the landscape is edible. A vast part of the grounds are made up of olive trees and rows of grape vines, but there is also wild rosemary with beautiful purple flowers, wild asparagus, bay leaves that grow in huge bushes, and the edible flowers we use for garnish. Tonight I pick a few of these purple flowers to garnish risotto with.

Staff dinner is waiting for us since we arrive a bit late. Tonight it's just penne with a light tomato sauce, some rabbit legs, and a salad of fennel and tomatoes. Nothing fancy, but it feeds the staff and we are ready for dinner service at 8:00.

This evening there are four tables for a total of eight people which means I will get to do some of the cooking. I arrange the mise en place for the pasta station - sauces warming in a double boiler, cutting board and knives in place, fresh herbs, other sauces, and olive oil out on the counter.

The orders are slow tonight so I clean fava beans while I wait. People always say that when you start out in a restaurant all you do is peel potatoes, well for me fava beans have been my potatoes. They are time intensive as you have to take them out of the pod, and then peel each individual bean. It is relaxing and mindless work that can actually be a nice relief some days in the kitchen. After I remove the beans from the pods, they have to be blanched in order to help take off their outer layer. I pour the beans into the boiling water in the pasta cooker. In a minute I take them out and start peeling, but when I turn around, all the water to cook the pasta has turned purple! My sous chef comes over, looks at the water, and just laughs. I of course panic because we need to use this water to cook for service and I immediately start apologizing. All he says in reply is, "it's no problem." The exact same phrase he used the night I knocked the blender into the dish I was plating as I reached for a garnish. The blender made a really loud noise, a big mess, and ruined the dish, and he just said, "no problem, don't worry." He had extra of everything and put together a new dish in no time. He's great to work with.

I finish the fava beans and have my first order - passatina, a pureed pea soup with stuffed pasta. This dish only requires reheating food that we've already prepared -easy. Next order is one pici and one tagliatelle. This is a little more complicated. I have to cook two different kinds of pasta, one frozen one fresh, and make two different sauces, one with seared fish on top. As I begin to plate the pastas, stressing a bit about getting them out while they are hot, my sous chef comes over to help. He says to me, "you are good worker woman, and good woman. I tell my daughter that you are nice, and she is so happy. I tell her you are nicest girl in the world." All I can think to say back is, "and she believed you hunh?" We laugh a little as we each plate one of the pastas and send them out to the table.

Then it's time to clean and go home. I do a lot of cleaning at stage, but it is also a good way to make friends at work. I walk out of the kitchen into a beautiful, cool night - refreshing after the hot kitchen. We change and Balla drives me home. The full moon lights my way as I walk up to my house, hearing my roommates from the open window above. In the living room Francesco is playing his guitar while Antonio washes his clothes by hand. I begin to talk to Francesco about music and he asks me to sing "Light My fire" by The Doors. I explain to him that I don't sing, but he goes to get his song book anyways. I continually tell him that I don't want to sing, but once he starts playing, I realize he needs help with the rhythm and I join in. His guitar is not in tune so I, as unbelievable as it sounds, carry the tune while he strums. Antonio took a video and I can only wonder if it will ever surface on Facebook.

It is now 11:45 and my roommates sit outside my bedroom door in the common room talking and smoking. I make a cup of green tea, go on the computer, and go to bed - this is a day in the life of stage.

Spring in Tuscany

I'm falling in love with Italy...again. I have to admit that the first two months I spent in Italy (in Colorno in school) were not so glamorous. As hard as it was to admit, at that point in time, I did not like living in Italy. Now, I'm rediscovering why I enjoy this country so much. Spring time in Tuscany is absolutely beautiful. I awake to the crackling of a fire outside my window where neighbors are burning the olive branches they have pruned to make room for new growth.

Walking about the air smells of these fires constantly as people all over the hills burn similar kinds of fires in preparation for the coming summer. They smell wonderful like a mix between incense and burning herbs.
Then unexpectedly as I walk along the most wonderful perfumed scent hits me as I pass a purple flowering tree or a small patch of pink flowers on the ground. Although I don't recognize the kinds of flowers, the scent often reminds me of lillies and spring freshness. A lemon tree in the courtyard outside my house.

I've also been traveling on my days off, which is an interesting experience because I travel alone. Three weeks ago I ventured to Florence for the day. It's about an hour by train and I spent the day walking along the Arno, eating gelato, shopping, and hanging out enjoying the bustle of the city that contrasts the serenity of Cortona.

Duomo in Florence.

Two weeks ago I traveled to Passigano Sul Trasimeno, a town that sits on Lake Trasimeno which boarders Tuscany and Umbria. It was beautiful. I didn't know what to expect as I stepped off the train, but I soon found what vaguely resembled a boardwalk full of shops, outside restaurants, and benches that are set up perfectly for watching the sun set. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and the locals were out walking and enjoying the spring day.

I explored the older part of the city that includes a medieval wall as all old cities in this region do, and then I sat and watched the sun set over the lake.

And finally this past weekend I went to Rome. It was a two and a half hour train ride from here, but it was well worth it to go even for just one day. I was able to find one of those hop-on hop-off buses so I saw a lot in a short time - The Colosseum, Spanish Steps, many of the piazzas, and St. Peter's Basilica, where I was able to go underneath and see the papal tombs. This is somthing that I have wanted to do since junior year theology in high school when my teacher told me about it. Most notably I saw where Pope John Paul II was buried, and where the bones of St. Peter are buried directly under the alter and cupola of the basilica named after him.

The Kiss Kitchen

I know, I've been failing miserably at blogging lately. A lot has changed in the past few weeks, and I finally feel like I'm coming up for air. The last couple of days in Colorno (the town where my school was) were actually very nice, but I'm thinking I only enjoyed them so much because I knew I'd be leaving soon. Saying goodbye to ALMA (my school) was a little more difficult as I came to realize how much I enjoyed some of the teachers there. Although I didn't care for our main chef, it was our other teachers, Matteo for wine, Gulia for language, and Bently for history that really enriched my time at ALMA.

I left Colorno on Friday March 19 and came here to Tuscany for my stage. Traveling here by myself was not fun. I had to run up and down stairs at train stations with a 70 pound bag surrounded by Italians who are very inconsiderate walkers. Needless to say, I was happy to arrive in Cortona. I spent some time in the city on Friday night and had a nice dinner of ribolita with glass of sangiovese - two of my favorite Tuscan specialities.

Il Falconiere www.ilfalconiere.it

Saturday morning I headed to Il Falconiere, the hotel and restaurant where I am doing my stage. It is an old hotel with beautiful grounds that over look the hills of Tuscany with the city of Cortona up on a hill to the left. The restaurant here has one Michelin star led by Chef Richard Titi. I really like the kitchen and the people in it. On my first day they told me it was the "Kiss Kitchen" and I'm not sure if it's because they are Italian or just because they are happy, friendly people, but everyone kisses everyone - to say goodbye and hello and sometimes for no reason at all.

The Kiss Kitchen

My first week was tough. I worked 7 straight days which comes out to around 77 hours. So I figure it can only get better. Our schedule is such that we go to work from 9:30-3:30 to do a lunch service, and then from 6:30- 11:30 or when ever dinner is over. I like having the break in between because I get to come back to my house and relax and go for a run.

My living situation is interesting I guess. I live by myself in a big old farm house. It's the staff housing, but no one else lives here. After spending some time here, I think I know why. The house is cold, it makes strange noises, and I'm definitely allergic to something in it. Living by myself is something new for me, and up untill this point something I was not sure I'd be able to do, but I think I'm finally getting used to the noises and I've been sleeping better lately.

At work my tasks mostly consist of cleaning vegetables or other labor intensive tasks. I do however get to make pasta, which I actually like a lot. So far I've made pici, a thick spaghetti made from only flour and water that I roll out by hand, tagliatelle, made from farro flour, semolina, and eggs which I also cut by hand, and ravioli stuffed with a liquid tomato sauce. I've also started plating the amuse bouche for dinner service. It changes every night, but could consist of a fried meat ball served over a creamy bail sauce.

I find that when I'm not at work I am lonely and bored. I don't think that this is going to be an easy experience to get through, but I think I have it better than some of my friends here and I don't think I have much to complain about in terms of my kitchen. I just keep telling myself that it may not be easy, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Today for Easter we had nearly 60 people which is the restaurant capacity. So today was the first day I got to see what a busy kitchen looks like, and it was fun. I plated the appetizer which was a fresh ricotta served with spring greens, and I helped make the pasta course. The time passed really quickly and it was intersting because we had a special menu for Easter so there were some new dishes to try. They served asparagus four ways as a starter, cannelloni stuffed with a rabbit ragu for the pasta course, lamb was the main dish served with caramalized onions, and for dessert there was a chocolate egg stuffed with an almond and lemon mouse on top of a rhubarb nest served with fresh strawberries.

Although I am away from home and all my friends and family I've really enjoyed myself today. Happy Easter to all of you where ever you are celebrating.

The Land of Nutella, Barolo, and Slow Food - And My First Italian Hospital Visit

Last Friday we went to Piemonte, a region in the north west corner of Italy bordering on France. This region is known for its wine - specifically the nebbiolo grapes that make up the famous Barolo and Barbaresco wines of the Langhe region. So naturally our tour of this region included a stop at a winery. Fontana Fredda is the name of the winery where we sampled some wines paired with our lunch. The first course was a crudo (raw) sausage served with a sparkling rose wine. They chose to pair a sparkling wine with this dish to counter-balance the fatty consistency of the raw meat. Next we had a cabbage salad paired with the house red wine that was made from a mixture of nebbiolo grapes and some other varieties. And finally, with our fresh pasta and meat ragu, we were served the mighty Barolo. I found all of these wines to be very good. And what's more, I liked them both paired with food and on their own which is typically something I can't say about such full bodied red wines.

These are the barrels in the Fontana Fredda celler where they age their red wines.

The next stop on our tour was Eataly - a giant market that is inspired by Slow Food. Slow Food is a movement that strives to be everything fast food isn't. It focuses on fresh, local, traditional products and that is what this market sells. They have some of Italy's best meats, fish, cheeses, olive oils, vinegars, grains, and wines - it is a food lover's paradise, and a dangerous place to take a group of culinary students after they have sampled so much wine at lunch! We spent two hours in this store, and I really enjoyed shopping there. The good new is that an Eataly will soon be opening up in New York.

This is what some of the produce looks like in Eataly. Just in this small section there are four different types of radicchio, and all of it is so fresh and beautiful.

Piemonte is also home to my favorite Italian product - Nutella. We didn't get to visit the factory, but the surrounding town of Alba smells of chocolate and it's wonderful just to walk through the streets there. We did stop in a nice pastry shop along the way. There is nothing noteworthy about this tart and cappuccino except that they were delicious and made for a nice picture.

And finally, I made a vist to the hospital today after cutting myself in the kitchen. Out class was in charge of making lunch for the whole school today, so a total of 200 plates. As I was dicing some cabbage I sliced my finger nail in half vertically. It was not a pretty sight and I had to go to the hospital so they could glue my nail back together. I think it'll be a few days till I'm back in the kichen, but I figure you can't play with knives and fire all day long and not expect to get hurt.

Toscana

Last week our region of study was Tuscany. I think is one of the most well known regions in all of Italy, but one that I still had a lot to learn about. We had an excellent guest chef visit from Tuscany - Stefano Santo. He's a young guy in his 30's who gave us a sample of modern Italian cuisine that has many outside influences. For example, the first dish he made for us was a blended chick pea soup, very common in Tuscany, but he topped it with coconut fried shrimp and Shiso which is a sort of Jappanese basil. I was a bit unsure how chick peas would blend with coconut but after trying it I found that because the shrimp were dipped in beaten egg whites first, they had a very light consistency that actually meshed well with the chick pea soup. Below is another one of Chef Santo's dishes that was also very good. This is squab (pigeon) with stewed vegtables, liver with a reduced mandarin orange sauce, all topped with a thick, flavorful demi-gloss -a reduced sauce made from both the meat and bones of an animal. It has a lot of flavor because the meat and bones sit in the liquid for one day, and then that flavor is concentrated when the sauce is reduced. Needless to say, I really enjoyed Chef Santo's demonstration, and he is one of the chefs that I am hoping to stage under. The day after the demo was baking day. We made various Italian breads like pane toscana, foaccia, and pane al burro (a butter bread), but our chef also let us make up our own recipes. For this we had to learn the proper proportions of flour, liquid, salt, fat, and yeast. Due to the language barrier, we had a difficult discussion with our chef about these percentages and I entered the kitchen a little shaky about how to go about making my own bread. It turned out to be one of the best days in the kitchen so far. I ended up making a semolina flour bread with both egg yolks and butter so it was a nice, rich, flavorful bread. And I also helped some of my classmates make the baguettes above and piadina. Piadina is one of my new favorite discoveries here. It is a flat bread made with lard and cooked in a pizza oven. We ate with stuzzichino, a saltly, sour soft cheese and it was delicious. It's definitely a recipe I'm bringing back with me. Friday of last week we had our field trip to Tuscany. This included a visit to two farms, a night in both Sienna and Florence, and a wine tasting at a producer in Montepulciano. At each of the farms we learned about the way each farmer grows their produce and raises there live stock. Above is the first farm we went to where they sell the eggs they produce for 1 Euro per egg! The hens are free range and are fed goat milk which gives the yolk an almond taste. We got to eat these special eggs seasoned with oragano, pepper, capers, and lemon zest. The were cooked so they were still runny so we had to eat them with a spoon. It was nice to experience something so common as an egg in a new way. The other farm we went to is where they raise chinina cattle which are used for the famous fiorentina steak. It was nice to learn about this breed of cattle, but at the same time I found it kind of useless because we will never use this kind of meat in America. Below is a picture of me with the wines from Contucci, the producer we visited. The wine from this producer didn't blow me away, but the town of Montepulciano did. Besides the fact that it is a little touristy, the town itself is facinating. I have never been to a town this hilly before. There are numerous steep narrow roads, lined with old stone buildings that date back hundreds of years. The view from this town is beautiful looking out over the Tuscan countryside you can see the vineyards and small farms dispersed throughout. Even on the grey day we were there it was still memorable.

I thought it would also be nice to show some of the dishes that I've been making here. Below are Agnolotti - a fresh stuffed pasta filled with braised beef and covered in a sauce made from reducing the braising liquid. I especially liked these because they are a very substantial pasta and one of the only we have made with a meat filling.

And finally this is the dessert we made today in pastry. On the left is a chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream, then a hazelnut cake filled with candided hazelnuts, and on the spoon is a zabione custard which has the flavor of moscato wine. I liked this dessert because I love all the flavors that we used and I think the presentation is both elegant and modern.
One last note - our school held this competition last week called Almost Famous Chefs where 10 young chefs compete to go on to America and compete in the final round in Napa Valley. The winner of the Italian competition happened to be a graduate from our school and today she needed help in the kitchen practicing her dish. Me and two of my classmates we chosen to help her out for this. It was an interesting experience. We had set timing that we had to get the dish out, and it was pressure in the kitchen that I haven't felt yet - sorta felt like I was on Top Chef for a bit. It was exhausting, but a good expereince. Here is a link to the website of the competition www.almostfamouschef.com. The girl's name from our school is Laura and she will be going to the the Culinary Institute of America's campus in Napa next week for the finals.

I've had a long day, and I'm very tired, please excuse any spelling or grammer mistakes tonight.

Field Trips

My blogging has been non-existent for the past two weeks because the new computer I bought before coming here broke. I got the screen replaced yesterday after the long process of dealing with tech help over the phone. This process is even more frustrating in a foreign country. It did however give me an opportunity to put my Italian to good use.

I am happy to have my computer working again and I want to write about the field trips we went on almost two weeks ago. On Friday February 5 our first field trip led us through a tasting of many products from the region of Emilia Romagna. Our first stop was a Parmigiano Reggiano factory. Here we observed the cheese-making process from milk into curds and whey, and then followed the cheese through the entire aging process.

This is me standing in a row of cheeses that had been aging for about 12 months. (I haven't gained that much weight I swear! It's just that I'm wearing my coat under the poncho, haha.) Each wheel of cheese has to be inspected by the Consortium in order to recieve the DOP label which certifies it as a quality cheese product of Emilia Romagna. To test the cheese, members of the Consortium simply tap the top of the wheel in a few specific places and listen to the sound it makes. From these sounds they can tell if the cheese is a quality DOP product.

Our next stop was an old castle that has been transformed into a bed and breakfast with two higly respected farm to table restaurants, and is the largest producer of culatello di zibello in the world. Culatello is a cured meat product that comes from the top/butt part of the pig's leg. It is simillar to prosciutto but more uncommon and therefore much more expensive. This is the link to the website of Antica Corte Pallavincina (the castle) www.acpallavicina.com/relais/_eng/index_eng.htm

Before leaving the castle we ate a 3 hour Italian lunch which included 4 courses, wine, dessert wine, espresso, and of course and an after lunch digestive drink which for me was a dark, sweet hazelnut liquor. And for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed the limoncello because it was much sweeter than normal.

After that huge meal I took a nap on the bus as we drove to explore our next product - balsamic vinegar. Here we got to see the vineyards where they grow trebbiano grapes which are turned into aceto balsamico tradizionale. Many of the balsamic vingars we have in America are copies or fakes of the this traditional product that has to age between 12 and 25 years. The vinegar is aged in wooden barrels that allow the vingar to evaporate, leaving a thicker, sweeter product behind. There are three kinds of balsamic that are certified DOP: the red label (aged 12 years), the silver label (aged 20 years) and the gold label (aged 25 years). We got to taste each of these and as the quality went up, the flavor got more powerful, less acidic, and sweeter each time. A bottle of the gold label DOP sells for over 100Euro in a store here.

On Satuday we headed out to the eastern part of Emilia Romagna which borders on the Adratic Sea.

Here we met the cheese man, Mr. Ranalli, who showed us his cheese shop, an olive oil mill, and welcomed us into his house for lunch. In the olive mill we got to see how olive oil is produced in an old mill with modern equipment. He also showed us how to test for good oil by rubbing a bit on the back of your hand and smelling the aroma. If it is good oil from Emilia Romagna it will smell like grass and artichoke. We also tasted cheese that is aged in a fossa or pit. This tradition came about in the 13th century when villages would get pillaged. They would hide their food in a pit and cover it with hay in order to save their food supply. Ageing cheese in a pit like is a traditional method that gives a unique flavor to the cheese.

The pictures above are the view from Mr. Ranalli's house where we had a delicious lunch of tagliatelle with a boar, deer, and ostrich ragu served with piadina - a type of Italian flat bread. The second picture is of Mr. Rannalli in his cheese shop with the cheese and wine he let us sample. He was very welcoming and hospitable, and I was grateful to learn from him.

Puglia

I have finally found a region I could see myself interning in-Puglia. (Sometimes this region is written Apuglia, I'm not sure why exactly, but I am going to stick with Puglia). We learned about the history and culture of Puglia this morning before our guest chef demonstration. Puglia is the region that comprises the heel of the boot. Because of its position on the southern coast , this region has seen many invaders throughout its history, and thus has many outside influences on its cuisine. The strongest influences are that of the Arabs and the Spanish. (There are dishes resembling paiea as well as flat breads originating in Arab countries). Also, due to the geography of this region, there is a real balance and variety in the cuisine between meat, seafood, and grains and vegetables. It is comparable to California in climate and geography - there are miles of coast line, hills and mountains, as well as flat ground for growing crops. Infact, many of the same wines are grown in both California and Puglia. It is this great variety in the cuisine that has drawn me to this region.

The guest chef from Puglia was our first female chef, and also the first chef I've been able to understand in Italian. Either she spoke very slow and clear, or I'm getting better at understanding - I hope it's a little of both. I immensely enjoyed watching her cook and learning about her philosophy towards food. She runs the restaurant Al Fornello da Ricci with her husband, and toghether they make most of the products they use. For example, they make all the cured meats, salted fish, jams, jellies, stocks, and pastas in-house.

Today for us she brought some of these homemade products as well as some of the specialities of the region. The most amazing item we tasted today was burrata. Buratta is a kind of fresh mozzarella cheese sutffed with strings of fresh mozzarella and fresh cream. It's like eating the best fresh mozzarella with a very soft, flavorful center that enhances the overall taste of the cheese. It's is good both on its own or in a sauce as she prepared it for us to accompany a millefoglie (a layered dumpling of sorts made of swiss chard, eggplant, mushrooms, and scamorza cheese all wrapped in a blanched cabbage leaf) which is then served with a thin, toasted slice of black bread, which is dyed using a black olive puree - it was a tasty first course.

She also made for us fresh focaccia and taralli which are a kind of Italian pretzel that are crunchy and dry - they go perfectly with a glass of red wine. (These were one of my favorites the last time I was in Italy, and I'm very excited to have a recipe to take home) After all these appetizers we also had a goat ricotta gnocchi (which had no potato in it so you could really taste the goat cheese), a roast leg of lamb stuffed with salami, capunti (a fresh tube shaped pasta) with a tomato and broccoli rabe sauce, and to finish off, she made a hazelnut and chocolate ice cream cake served with a caramel sauce and toasted hazelnuts - it was delicious. Hazelnut and chocolate is one of my favorite combinations, think nutella flavored ice cream - so good!

Unfortunately I am having trouble uploading pictures right now, perhaps I might have better luck tomorrow. For now I'm just happy I've found a region that really appeals to me and that I may get to work in for few months.