And now for the best day ever! This was honestly, almost all of us, one of our favorite days ever! We got to chill out at the house in the morning and then in the afternoon, Tita and Nonie of Umbriacooks4u came out to our house to give us cooking lessons. Look them up if you're in Italy!
Actually, kind of a funny story. I don't know if I mentioned before, but our house in Umbria was clear at the top of this mountain and you had to take these twisty, gravel, nowhere roads and it could be kind of hard sometimes, but we thought the directions that had been given us were pretty clear so we passed the same directions along to Tita and Nonie.
Around 2pm, Kim, Melody and I decided to go down to town, Pietralunga - about 15 minutes from our house - just to hit the grocery store, the bakery and grab a cappuccino. We expected Tita and Nonie around 4 so around 3:30 we decided to head back to the house. We hopped in the car and started back through the town and then up the hill. The roads up the hill led to a few different houses and such and we sometimes saw traffic but not that often. Well, this afternoon there was a white car in front of us when we turned. I just got this feeling. We're following it and its going pretty slow (which I do go a little fast :)) and then I see the passenger is holding a paper and I jokingly said "I bet anything thats the cooking class people". We laughed and haltingly followed them a mile or so more and then the car all of a sudden just make a u-turn and pulls over onto the side of the road. I stopped and I said again that it was probably the cooking class people but this time I was serious. Kim ended up going up to the car, the two women inside looked a little frightened and then all of a sudden you saw these arms fly out of the drivers window and grab Kim and theres a lot of smiling and laughing that we can see and then Kim runs back to our car and says that indeed, it was Tita and Nonie and they were getting ready to just turn around and go back because they thought they were lost.
They ended up following us up to the house, and I laughed when Nonie (who is an American who married an Italian and moved to Umbria back in 1973) said that I drove crazy like the locals. And I was really trying to go slow as they followed me. No worries, we got to the house safe and sound and Tita and Nonie said to just relax while they put everything together for the class. FYI - Tita is Italian and speaks hardly any English so Nonie did all the talking/translating as well as the cooking.
Tita and Nonie came in and arranged everything and brought all the cooking goods and foods with them -- we didn't have to do anything except enjoy and learn -- AND EAT!
We started in the kitchen actually making dessert (thats Nonie watching...)
And then we moved to the dining room to start making "Torta Rustica" with Tita.
Back in the kitchen to cook the Torta Rustica.... These are flat bread things that the farmers in Umbria used to be able to mix in one dish and then they would bake them on top of hot stones in their "campfire".
A finished Torta Rustica!
Back in the kitchen to do Tita's Torta Rustica Pie...
We all took turns doing stuff so sometimes, we got a little down time....
One completed Torta Rustica Pie...
Now moving onto oven baked tomatos - Tita and Nonie showing us how to sprinkle the herbs on the tomatos -- like we're sowing seeds or fairy dust.....
Umrbia and Tuscany tends to have more "virgin" foods that are not with thick sauces. Because this is the region where olives and wines come from and are grown, much of their cooking is with olive oils whereas down south, they don't have oil as much so they do the thicker sauces, and up north, by Milan, they don't have the oils either so they use butter a lot in their cooking.
Onto chickpea soup -- it has to have a herb bouquet that you kind of "fry" up in the a saucepan with olive oil...
Broccoli souffle kind of things....
Back to the chickpea soup...
Flambing veal for the main course...
The tomatos are finished about now...
Ohhh - crazy - Parmesan baskets....
Filling the Parmesan baskets with pear compote kind of stuff....
And then we got to sit down and eat! Tita and Nonie set the table and served us and cleaned up - all we did was learn how to cook and enjoy!
The appetizer - Two kinds of Torta Rustica and then the Torta Rustica pie and the Pear and Parmesan baskets.
Second course - Chickpea soup
Pasta is always its own course - spaghetti with oven roasted tomatos.
Main course - veal and broccoli souffles.
Dessert - hot chocolate "lava" cakes.....
And after Tita and Nonie cleaned up, we all had to do a group picture to remember one of the best nights ever!
