Perugia: Day 2 (March 11th, 2013)

I slept okay. Beds here are extremely soft, and my back gets sore and wakes me up. But still, I got quite a bit of sleep. I made myself a cup of coffee with a Moki, which I've never used before! But I looked it up on YouTube and it's really simple (ah, the internet!).

My cooking class with Stephania was upstairs in Rafaella's house. Rafaella has 5 cats and 1 small white dog named Bianca, and I got to meet most of the brood (it's nice to have cats around). It turns out that a few of the other cooking class participants cancelled, so I had a nice private lesson all to myself! We made crostata, which is a dessert kind of like a tart, filled with preserves or custard. Once that was in the oven, we proceeded to chicken arrabiata ("angry" chicken, because of the red pepper), tagliatelle, and an appetizer called torta al testo. At first, I was a little disappointed to see that tagliatelle was one of the recipes, since we made pappardelle in Florence (and tagliatelle is just a smaller noodle), but Stephania had some different ways of doing it. For one thing, she cut the noodles on the small width side instead of the long length side, which makes it easier. She also didn't flour the dough as often as Andrea instructed us to do. I'm sure it works either way, but it was helpful to see some variations.

The other good part about making tagliatelle was that Stephania made a different sauce for it. She used onions, artichokes, and speck (smoked ham). I had never really worked with artichokes, so she taught me how to clean and cut them. Although time consuming, I really love artichokes and they are in season right now, so I'm trying to get my fill while I can. Stephania says that when they are in season, she eats them everyday, even raw in salad.

A lot of the ingredients that we used came straight from the farm, such as the olive oil, eggs, and the rosemary, bay leaves, and oregano used in the chicken. When I sat down to dinner, I also had red wine that is made on the farm. Unfortunately, the olive oil was harvested in November/December, and the grapes in September, so there isn't much to see on the farm right now. But eating a home-cooked meal and drinking organic wine sure is a nice way to spend a rainy Tuesday.

I stayed in the rest of the afternoon and evening, and spent my time taking a nap and copying recipes into my iPad. It is very cold and rainy, so I was happy to spend it this way. Plus, I had an upset stomach and felt achy, so it felt good to stay inside and rest.

Six more days until the marathon.