Amazing Tuscany
Trip Start
May 28, 2007
1
28
49
Trip End
Jul 2007
Firenze, Italy
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
First beginning by being picked up at our hotel in Florence, and being driven to Certaldo through the amazing farming and wine regions of Tuscany. We were introduced to Giuseppina Pizzolato who is an world wide acclaimed traditional Tuscan cook and medieval cook. After drinking a glass of the wine from the winery and eating selection of cheeses, meats and fantastic onion marmalade we donned out aprons and hats and began our lesson in cooking Tuscan foods.
Giuseppina first explained Tirami Su', and we we prepared the ingredients and made it so it could set in fridge to be eaten later. We then began making fried zucchini flowers - it was great we learnt how to make a traditional batter before cooking them and eating them - we did a great job they were excellent
Looking over Tuscany
. We then moved onto making the next course which involved making pasta and then combining spinach, ricotta and a few other ingredients we made ravioli by hand, and cooked it all up and made a butter sauce and finally garnished with grated truffle. What a feast! We enjoyed eating them!With the leftover pasta we made it into tagliatelle and made some pesto out of basil, garlic and pine nuts we combined them for a wonderful simple dish. I think we will rarely buy pasta now, since it was easy for us to make, and once cooked it can be frozen for some time, or dried and sealed and kept for two weeks. Then the main course of Beef Saltimbocca, which included local beef fillets, prosciutto, sage, butter and local red wine. It was east to make, cook and of course eat.
It was then time to rescue to Tirami Su' from the fridge and devour it along with a shot of dessert wine which was to be sipped along with the dessert (Traditional Tirami Su' does not have liqueur or alcohol in it). Once finished we were absolutely full and ready for a siesta, so Giuseppina kindly offered us an espresso which did the trick. We unfortunately had to move on to the next part of our tour, but we just had the most amazing time and Giuseppina was a wonderful teacher. We can't wait to try out our new skills at home!
After a short drive we arrived at Monteriggioni which was a castle built in the year 1213. We had wine and relaxed for a while before making our way to the horse riding place (the tour people also did horse riding) in Chianti. We met some of the horses, played ping pong, ate fruit and then had the car ride back to Florence (which frightened us to no end as the drivers are so scary...no one uses blinkers, its not unusual to go 60 km over the speed limit and no one takes notice of the lines dividing lanes if there are any).
Now back we are about to go to bed, its been a frightfully hot humid day and we are exhausted! Tomorrow after doing some more site seeing we will go to the Carrara Mountains in the afternoon to see where they extract Marble from!!! So exciting!!
Photos coming as soon as I get my laptop on line
Comments
Dinner invite please
Rene and I bags being the first invitees to a dinner party at your place when you're back - want to taste all this gorgeous cooking you say you're going to do!!! I'm sure the dogs can mind the kids for a few hours!!!