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.
Marcella’s stuck with me for one more week . . .
Unemployed and Traveling 
Still pretty sure they’re supposed to vote one of you out every week.
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