Sunday, July 1, 2012

Italy - Part II Florence- Giovanni's Cooking Class

Giovanni"s Cooking Class
  
Florence (Firenze) may be a small city but it is culturally very rich and your choices of things to do there are limited only by your personality and your bank account.  Even walking the city streets in Florence is a treat, whether you are interested in the architecture or in buying leather.  It is best if you try to figure out what you would like to do before you go.  The city truly has allot to offer and the important things can easily get lost in the less important activities because it's all good.                     One of the best things we did was to schedule a cooking class -Giovanni's Cooking Class by Food and Wine Academy in Florence.  It was so much fun and so worth the 4 to 5 hours of time.  To start us off Giovanni took us to the Italian Market.   What a great experience!  I actually bought some cherries because they were just too good to pass up.  I ordered cherries in Italian and then used sign language for the quantity of three handfuls.  The Italians are a gracious people and will do their best to understand what you are saying.   We picked up the meat and veggies for the class here.  There were 28 in our class and we made handmade ravioli stuffed with a ricotta filling, pasta, Bologenese sauce and tiramisu.
 We did the Tiramisu first since it had to set up in the refrigerator while we made the main course. The picture on the left is showing us just how stiff the egg whites should be. On the right we have already browned the meat/pork sausage and Giovanni is adding a cup of chianti to the sauce and we realize just how hungry we are.                                                                                                  We made everything on a marble countertop. As a kitchen/bath designer  I have designed plenty of bathrooms using marble.  Marble is a fabulous material but it is soft and it does stain easily and for that reason we shy away from using it in the kitchen in the States.  Yet, here it is.  It's Carrara marble and they've been using this slab for the last thre years and it still looks beautiful.  No wine stains or anything like that.

The four hours or so in class just flew by.  We were all busy and finally got to eat our prize with a glass of Chianti.  Of course we all congratulated ourselves and ate heartily.  Giovanni and his staff did a wonderful job and if you are going to Florence I suggest you book this event before you leave home.


Our results:


Pasta and meat sauce

Ravioi


Tiramisu.  Since there were 28 of us, we had to put something on top to indentify it as ours.







  
























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