We left Italy a few days ago, and Alice wants to be sure you know how much she loves it there. After watching Under the Tuscan Sun, she is already insisting on returning and buying a villa in Cortona. Getting her to the UK was another story, that I’m sure she will want to share with her readers soon.
LOVE Italia. Am starting to speak a little Italian. I know the words “bella”, “ciao”, and “gelato”. I, of course, get a lot of “bella” and “ciao, bella!”
I like the coffee shop we go to because the customers understand that I am underfed, and give me pieces of their cornettos every morning.
I get to lick the gelato containers clean. Then my face smells like gelato, which is nice. My favorite flavor is all of them.
I eat out at all the restaurants. But one time, at a bar, I got in trouble for putting my face on the table and taking a nap. I never returned to that establishment! Another time, the man cutting the ham also understood that I am underfed, and kindly gave me a piece of delicious prosciutto.
My human grandma came to see me, and took me on lots of walks and let me lick all the dinner plates clean. A practice human parents should take note of, please!
Italia is my favorite place in the whole world.
-Alice
Here are a few photos Alice wanted to include with her post. The three below are at her cafe, where she would literally sprint every morning with or without us.
“My Italian bff.”
“What the heck, this door is always open!”
“My second Italian bff.”
Alice’s sightseeing tour of Rome. She liked the Trevi Fountain the best.
“It’s hot here.”
“I’m bored.”
Wine touring in Tuscany.
“Me in an old cave.”
“Prosciutto friend.”
There was this one incident . . . all was forgiven after we gave her a gelato container peace offering.
All alone in the kitchen this week without my mom. A little lonely at first, but dessert day helped me pull through.
Day 11 – Desserts
We started off making biscotti and a vegan cookie. We used the biscotti to make a biscotti-flavored bavarian. The bavarian was really complicated, and included what can best be described as a wine jello shot in the middle. Then we made sebadas, a dessert from Sardinia, which is sort of like an Italian quesadilla, with honey on top. Really good.
Below are the sebadas. They have pecorino cheese inside. Yum.
Bavarian didn’t have enough time to set. Imagine it prettier. The filling is an Italian sweet wine – vin santo!
Day 12 – Sauces
We made about 5 different sauces today. The best part was that Marcella had me make two different tomato sauces anyway I wanted, and then we just watched what happened. I made one spicy sauce, and one without spice, each sauce using a different technique.
The spicy sauce got started with hot oil, and was not put through a food mill. The other sauce was started in cold oil, and then put through a mill.
Before and afters. Spicy sauce shown above, non-spicy below.
The main difference between the two sauces was heating the oil or not – heating the oil first leaves an oilier residue (in a good way), whereas starting the sauce cold causes the oil to be absorbed by the ingredients and the finished product looks a little more watery as opposed to oily. Here are the sauces with pasta, spicy (hot oil) on the left.
Other sauces and dips made today.
Day 13 – Low Cooking with Game Meat
Marcella got us some fresh Tuscan hare and wild boar today. We made stew and pate with the boar, and braised the hare. We also made some pork confit. The hare was really tough and gamey, the boar and pork were delicious.
Hare with blackberry sauce and chestnut “polenta”.
Day 14 – Offals . . .
Made lots of strange stuff today, but I’ll say this, actually preparing the strange stuff makes it a lot easier to eat and it all tasted just fine. I probably won’t make any of it ever again, but it was tasty! We also made pan brioche, which was delicious.
Fat web.
Liver wrapped in fat web.
Brioche.
Sweetbreads and artichokes getting ready for frying.
Tripe for stew.
Some of the finished products. Dish with strawberries on top is chicken liver pate.
Day 15 – Gelato!
Last day of cooking school . . . I’m really sad to see it end. But I definitely didn’t tear up or anything (I did).
Gelato! A perfect topic to end on. We made seven gelatos with different bases and flavors. They break down into a few different categories by the base: 1) milk base; 2) milk/egg base; and 3) water/sugar base (sorbets).
We made two milk-based flavors – fiore di latte (just plain milk and a little vanilla) and a savory flavor, parmesan cheese. Three milk/egg bases – crema, basil, and chocolate. Basil was really good. Wasn’t expecting it. Finally, we may two sorbets – lemon/strawberry, and rose. The rose was amazing. I’m usually not one for flower-flavored foods, but the rose is a winner. And both sorbets were really creamy! You would not have thought they were sorbets. The trick to the creaminess is folding Italian meringue into the base part-way through the freezing process.
Meringue getting added to the strawberry.
Rose! The best. But I didn’t freeze it quite long enough . . .
Clockwise from top left – chocolate, strawberry, parm, fiore di latte, basil, crema.
If anyone is in Florence and is looking for a cooking class, I highly recommend Giglio. Marcella and her team are awesome. She can teach you any traditional Italian dish, or really just anything (but I think the Italian dishes are most fun!). And for those who are not unemployed and traveling, you can sign up for half-day classes.
So glad I had this experience, and I now have a lot of cooking gadgets to purchase when we return to SF, including a pasta roller and gelato maker.
Very. According to my Apple watch, I am about 3x more active now than I was at home. Dan likes to go to gyms when he can find them, I like to go for long walks and short runs. We walk a ton in general, and I’ve got the blisters to prove it.
How is traveling with an older pug?
-Alex C.
Reject the premise. Alice is 12 years young. Traveling with Alice is wonderful. She makes friends everywhere she goes, which makes us proud pug parents.
What is European pet etiquette?
-Alex C.
Depends on where you are. In France, dogs go basically everywhere, except for most parks, annoyingly, and museums. And they generally are not allowed in the bigger retailers or grocery stores, but they are welcome in pretty much any restaurant or cafe. And not just outside, your pup can dine inside with you.
Portugal was not very pet friendly. Dogs really aren’t allowed anywhere except outdoor spaces. People do seem to really like dogs, they just can’t go anywhere with you.
Florence is by far the best place to travel with your dog. Alice goes literally everywhere. Dogs are even allowed in the grocery store! They ride in special carts. The other day, two dogs were in their little carts and were being wheeled towards each other and it almost got ugly! I am so so disappointed I did not get video footage of the dog fight near the meat department.
Alice in a bar. Scusami, you forgot my Spritz!
Florence and Paris are both more dog friendly that SF, Lisbon is less. Vets everywhere have been great.
How did you pack for the trip?
Alex C.
It starts with the bag.Dan wanted a bag he could carry on his back so he could walk around with both hands free. He got a 120L Eagle Creek duffle with wheels that he is very proud of. I have two bags, a 90L Patagonia black hole bag, which is much cuter than the Eagle Creek bag but does not have wheels, and my Briggs and Riley carry on. I brought two bags because I didn’t think I could carry a 120L bag on my back very easily but couldn’t fit everything in the 90L, and because I like my two bags. I don’t travel hands free, but I can put the duffle on my back, or roll it around on top of my carry-on. We each have about two weeks worth of clothes, so we do laundry about that often.
In terms of the clothes themselves, I brought my favorite items from home and also went to Banana Republic and bought some basic stuff that I won’t mind tossing as we travel. Dan just crammed as much stuff as he could into the big bag.
All our stuff.
Are you buying souvenirs?
-Alex C.
No.
Are you learning new languages?
-Alex C.
Oui! (No).
Any major disasters so far?
-Alex C.
We had one snafu in Lisbon. The apartment we booked was a fraudulent listing, and we spent an annoying amount of time trying to work that out with customer support. But, we ended up in a much nice place in a much nicer neighborhood. And the good thing about things going wrong when you are jobless is that whatever it is that has gone wrong, is far less stressful to deal with than when you had a job! It’s amazing.
How are you managing the low level anxiety of being unemployed and traveling?
-Alex C.
There is no anxiety. Hardest part was getting out the door.
For Dan, what is the secret project you have been working on?
-Alex C.
Sports writing. Plus some other stuff he’ll tell you about later.
Where do you do your Pulitzer worthy blogging? On the train? In the morning? Will Alice ever get a byline?
– Katie S.
Most of the Pulitzer worthy stuff happens in our apartments or cafes. I usually write in the morning because sometimes in the afternoon I need naps. Alice has Pug Corner, and she doesn’t need any more credit for having me translate her screams into words.
Here is how Alice’s blogging goes.
What is your favorite city so far?
-Katie S.
Paris.
How do you make those clever maps with the escargot on them?
– Anonymous
Great question, Anonymous. We have to keep some secrets secret. But I’ll say this, it’s a time-consuming art.
This week, Dan wanted to know which one of us was going to get voted out of cooking class (he gets Giglio Cooking School and TopChef mixed up). We asked Marcella and she said we could both stay, but threatened to kick me out if I burn the garlic.
Day 6 – More Pasta
Today we made four kinds of pastas with different ingredients in them to give us a better idea of how gluten forms, and how different ingredients effect the elasticity of the dough.
Here are the different pastas. On the left is buckwheat. On the right, there is soy lecithin (squares), then moving clockwise, bean pasta, hazelnut pasta, and regular pasta we made a few days ago.
Importantly, Marcella said that we had the most success of anyone she has had in class in the last five years at making the bean pasta, which is very difficult. And all our pasta was delicious.
We ended up with pasta and fagioli (pasta and beans) two ways. The traditional way which is a soup with beans and noodles, and then a fun new way, where we made the pasta dough with bean puree. This was our favorite dish of the day. Probably because we fried some of the pasta and put it on top.
Traditional
Marcella’s pasta and fagioli.
With the hazelnut pasta we made a mushroom sauce with pancetta, shallots, and herbs.
We used the buckwheat to make Pizzoccheri, which is traditioanlly from a valley in Italy up north by Switzerland. It’s a baked pasta with buckwheat pasta, cabbage, potatoes, and cheese.
Best part of today was getting more pasta practice in! We are getting good.
Day 7 – Veggies
Today we made minestrone soup, lentil soup, eggplant parmesan, and an eggplant mousse with chocolate ganache (not as weird as it sounds). Lots of dicing veggies today.
The best part was learning how to make tomato sauce from scratch. Here are the sauce phases, then incorporation into the eggplant parm.
Minestrone before and after.
Finished lentils (really easy), eggplant parm (compared to what we are used to eating in the U.S., there is very little parmesan in the traditional recipes), and the mousse with ganache.
Day 8 – Preserved Codfish
I thought we left the codfish in Portugal, but apparently not. Today, we made a cod dish with salted cod, and one with dried cod (salted cod was tastier). We also learned how to clean anchovies (they got fried), and make mayonnaise.
Here are the anchovies before, pictured with a beautiful polenta dome (we put the cooked polenta into a metal bowl with a little water in the bowl to cool and it popped out of its mold perfectly), and after they were fried (with a little fried polenta).
Below are most of the finished products. In the foreground, polenta cut into cute shapes and topped with salted-cod mousse. In the back, veal with tuna mayo (weird, but tasted pretty good).
Day 9 – Colored Pasta Day
More pasta! We made spinach triangles filled with asparagus and shrimp, blank ink pasta with cuttlefish (we cleaned the cuttlefish and tried to use the ink, but they sprayed out all their ink when they were caught, so we had to use packaged ink), coffee-flavored pici with artichokes, and red-pepper tagliolini with zucchini.
The black pasta was our favorite. Here is the cuttlefishe’s journey to the plate.
He got scared and sprayed all his ink.
And some more pretty pasta.
Finals.
Day 10 – Gnocchi
We made all kinds of crazy gnocchi – normal potato, beet, spinach and ricotta, chestnut, and one with a choux dough.
Mom’s last day today. She got a big hug and kiss from Marcella.
Preface: I wanted to take cooking classes while we were away, and got a few recommendations on schools in Italy from one of Dan’s Apple colleagues. She went to a professional school in the Piedmont region that sounds amazing and I looked into, but ultimately decided I don’t need to be a professional chef right now, and landed on Giglio Cooking School in Florence. I signed up for three weeks of the month-long course (I would have done all four, but our visas run out before the class is over). My mom decided to come join the fun, and is here for the first two weeks of the class. And we are the only two people in the class!
Marcella is the chef and owner, and teaches most of our lessons. We are in class for about 3.5 hours a day. Whenever we need herbs or bay leaves we just walk out the front door and pick them from the garden. There is staff whose only job it is to clean up the dishes after us. At the end of every class we sit down and enjoy what we’ve made along with a healthy amount of wine. It’s nice.
Day 1 – Fresh Pasta
On the first day, Marcella greeted us by the gate to the school. We told her we like to eat and she looked us up and down like she wasn’t so sure (we took this as a compliment on our physiques). Then, she asked us if we are athletes. So we immediately liked her. Marcella also told us at least three times that we are “different” Americans. We weren’t exactly sure what it meant, but she said it after we confirmed knowing that you peel and eat broccoli stems and telling her we are willing to eat anchovies.
We got lots of good information on pasta day. For example, there is no such thing as all purpose flour in Italy. Instead they have one million kinds. But basically, it all breaks down into semolinas (made from hard wheat), and farina (flour, made from soft wheat). We learned that cheese is made with some animal enzyme, so it isn’t vegetarian. And that parmesan is lactose free. Also, tomatoes weren’t in Italy until the 1700s! They come from Mexico.
We made three different pasta doughs, five different pasta shapes out of the doughs, and five sauces.
For meat sauces, we learned the order of operations for a classic sauce is: fat, veg, meat, wine, tomato. For a Bolognese it is way different: fat, meat, wine, veg, maybe tomato.
Rolling and shaping pasta above. Pasta with squids below. We also learned how to clean a squid.
Orrecchiette with broccoli on the left, and one of the meat sauces on the right.
Our favorite – ears and broccoli.
It was all delicious, and we are pretty confident we can make it again.
Day 2 – “Basic Preparations”
Today, we made a “brown” broth (made from roasted meats and veggies), a broth (made with chicken and veggies), which we then clarified (bizarre process – you add egg whites and more veggies to the hot broth and the egg white grabs all the “dirt”) and turned it into consume. And finally, we made two fish stocks – one we used to make risotto, and the other we reduced down to a sauce for shrimp.
Beginning of some meat broth.
We had a substitute teacher because today is Marcella’s birthday. His name is Angelo, and he describes everything as “beautiful.”
We learned that when you make a broth, you toss in the onion skins which give it color and nutrients. But never carrot skins. The veggie ratio is always (though never exactly precise) 1 part onion : 1/2 part carrot : 1/4 part celery.
The brown broth we will use on Thursday for pasta filling. The meat broth was used to make a consume. We made crepes (one egg, add flour until it gets sort of firm, get all the lumps out, then add milk until it looks just right, very easy) with parsley in them, then cut them into ribbons, and poured the consume over them. Like so:
Here is what the two bisques turned into — liquid for risotto and sauce for shrimp.
Apparently arborio rice is not the preferred risotto rice. Shocking. It is carnaroli, the king of rice.
Day 3 – Meats
We made four recipes today. Two are ancient Roman recipes that have pretty weird stuff in them, but were surprisingly tasty. The third and fourth were more “modern” preparations, and also delicious.
We learned how to de-bone a chicken (sort of. Any chicken I debone in the future will not be beautiful). We cut the chicken in two, de-boned, stuffed with a weird mix of stuff, then sewed them up and roasted them. We pan fried some lamb, then poured a vinegar based marinate over it. We took a round cut of veal and cooked it in a pot with raisins, wine, anchovy paste, and some other random things (old roman recipe).
Finally, the Brasato (the best one). We took a piece of beef, tied it up, browned it. Then, we softened finely chopped carrots, onion, celery with broth in a small sauce pan. Then added wine and the beef, and let it slow cook away. This was delicious, and if you come over for dinner, I will serve it. Here is the Brasato before and after its wine bath.
We asked Marcella to make sure to tell us why we are not normal Americans today, but she didn’t think of anything.
Chicken.
Veal.
Day 4 – Stuffed Pasta
Busy day today. Four kinds of stuffed pasta. What new thing did I learn today? How to cook and clean a brain.
We made: (1) tortellini with broth; (2) spinach ravioli with artichoke and ricotta filling; (3) ravioli filled with liquid broth (basically a soup dumpling) with a zucchini puree and yummy orange-carrot on top; and (4) angilotti filled with some crazy meats, including the brain, in a sage and brown butter sauce.
Spinach raviolis from start to finish.
Fillings for the tortellini and angilotti.
Some finished product.
Day 5 – Fish
Today I learned how to fillet a fish! We cleaned and filleted a branzino. We made some shellfish in tomato sauce, cured salmon with a celery souffle, tuna marinated in white wine, and swordfish in an orange/wine sauce.
Branzino!
salmon and souffle.
swordfish with citrus.
This is my attempt at recipe writing. Enjoy and you are welcome.
If you are still reading, I’m impressed. This post is long . . . . Week two started today, so lots more to come.
One loyal reader has requested an Ask the Travelers post, where we answer your questions about extended international travel with a pug. So, send us some questions in the comments, and we’ll post answers next week.
That’s “Gardens of Florence” according to Google translate. Well, there are not quite as many public gardens and parks here as I would like, but, the few here are winners. My mom and I visited two yesterday. The Gardino delle rose and the Gardino dell’Iris. They are on either side of Piazzale Michelangelo.
Haven’t had a map for awhile! That is a rose, and an iris.
The rose garden isn’t quite in full bloom, so I’ll plan to go back at the end of May. But there are spectacular views.
The Iris garden, on the other hand, is in prime time. It is only open about one month out of the year, and it’s now! Fun fact: the symbol of Florence is an iris, not a lily (this is according to the iris society people).
Iris, not lily.
The iris garden is incredible. There are 1,500 species of iris! It is on a hill sloping North East, dotted with olive trees and large sprays of iris. In parts of the garden, the iris are planted in large groupings by color, creating a nice flow and rhythm in the garden. For example:
Close-ups. Dad, I need some tips on flower close-ups. These are no bueno.
And here is the garden from above.
All for now. I know everyone can hardly wait to read all about Italian cooking school. I’m planning to write a few posts, probably one post per week of class, so just hold your horses.
Last Portugal post, and it is a collection of all the beautiful Azulejo. Imagine these pretty tiles in calming blues and whites everywhere you look . . .
I’ll miss it. Now we are in Florence where all the buildings are the same color. But the gelaterias are veritable rainbows!
Olá! We took a little Lisbon break and road-tripped to wine country for a few days. Stayed two nights in Porto, with a day trip to Douro Valley for wine tasting.
Porto
We rushed our way through Porto in about half a day. I really liked the city and would suggest staying longer if you are planning a trip to Portugal. We went into zero museums or churches, and instead went to “the most beautiful bookstore in the world” and a port tasting.
Livraria Lello (the bookstore) is really beautiful, and really packed with tourists. But worth checking out. It’s old and there is some vague J.K. Rowling association.
Port is a big deal here, as it is exclusively produced in the Douro region of Portugal (or so I’ve been told; no fact checking). Some thoughts on port. It is . . . okay . . . . It tastes a little like a tastier version of cough syrup. It’s just very sweet and syrupy (which you would think I’d be happy about). Dan asked every single Portuguese person we met how often they drink port and the answer was always “Christmas and holidays,” and then they would say it all gets exported to the UK.
Highly recommend port tasting at Taylor’s. You sit outside in a rose-filled courtyard, and these two fowl friends entertain you.
Steve
Bob (we did not give them these names)
Douro Valley
On Saturday, we drove about an hour inland to Douro Valley for the wine. Our friend Cathy gave us wonderful recommendations on wineries and a lunch spot, and we had such a great day! Here’s a map of our route and stops if anyone wants to copy.
First, we did a tour and tasting at Quinta do Vallado. We had a nice group of people on the tour, and met new friend Kathryn from Chicago who is traveling solo for awhile, and some of the owners of Ram’s Gate Winery in Sonoma.
Grapes get stomped by foot in there . . .
Lunch at DOC, it was tasty and beautiful. Lunch views.
Then we went to try some wine here:
Pool with view- requirement for any future winery I own.
Based on tasting wine at three out of hundreds of wineries, I’ve learned that this area (maybe all of Portugal) likes a blend. There are something like 200 different kinds of grapes in Portugal and we heard of wines that blended 35 different grapes (again, no fact checking). We drank mostly reds, and I won’t even try to describe the wine, other than by comparison to California wines. It is not as “bold” or “robust” as what we are used to getting in CA. That’s the best I can do. See if you can find some on a menu at home and give it a try!
We made it home safely from the Valley, and on Sunday headed to the beach in Porto before heading back to Lisbon.
We then had two days to eat as much Pastel de Nata as we could before heading to Florence.
Unemployed and Traveling 