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.

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Rolling and shaping pasta above. Pasta with squids below. We also learned how to clean a squid.

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Orrecchiette with broccoli on the left, and one of the meat sauces on the right.

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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.

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.

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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.

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We asked Marcella to make sure to tell us why we are not normal Americans today, but she didn’t think of anything.

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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.

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Fillings for the tortellini and angilotti.

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Some finished product.

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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.

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If you are still reading, I’m impressed. This post is long . . . . Week two started today, so lots more to come.