On Market Sopping

Chef Skills? Yeah, I"ve got those...

I had the best time learning a few easy tricks to make any meal tastier and more presentable with Chef Fulvio De Santa. It was a group of about 12 of us standing around a large square kitchen table with our own cutting boards, chef's hats and aprons. We each got a very large knife and were taught how to chop food very quickly, just how they do it on 'iron chef.' The chef emphasized the importance of freshness, cleanliness, and quality ingrediants. He showed us an array of about 20 different salts from as many countries that came in all sized crystals and colors. He even co-wrote his own book entitiled, "La Grande Cucina del Friuli Venezia Giula." I was surprized to learn that he's cooked for Prince Charles, who apparently is a vegetarian. Some good advise I remember Rala trazlating for us was: if you want any meat to have good flavor and cook easily, just fry it with olive oil fresh lemon and salt to taste. We made the easiest and best vegetable dish ever that combined a tomato boiled for 40 seconds stuffed with chopped sauteed veggies served over a dollop of fresh pesto sauce. And that was just the beggining. We went on to make fresh pasta from scratch, using the pasta making machine reminicent of our play-dough days. The pasta was cooked in boiling water that constantly renewed itself so it was completley sterile. The sauce he made with chicken for the pasta was where he added the Soave wine to 'clean the flavors and reduce a greecy texture.' The pasta was the only part of the meal he used butter on. The desert was a custard made with 35% cream, something I've never seen in a store, and was unbeleivably easy to prepare. The finished product combined fresh berries and a strawberry sauce that blended perfectly with the creamy texture of the custard. I can't wait to go back next week to see what other little tips can make cooking so easy and enjoyable...I may never eat mac n' cheese again.

On Becoming a Win-O

I've always preferred wine to beer, but after learning it's benefits, I especcially prefer vino. They've even found a way to make wine into a kind of 'girly drink' over here with their 'spritzers.' I ordered the 'spritzer friendly' over at the coppa cafe and was surprized to find so many big peices of strawberry and ice...it seemed more like a smoothie than an alcoholic beverage, and I could barely detect the wine. It was the most refreshing form of wine I've ever tasted. There are many options for wine over here. It seems a college-wallet-friendly-favorite is whatever you can get at the Pam for 1 euro(which as anyone will tell you, is cheaper than the water, but is pretty harsh going down.) Quality, again, is the main thing over here. I tryed the Moscato over at the Coppa Cafe, it was a fruity bubbly white wine that was sweeter than most I've tryed here. It reminded me of the cheep champagne I used to drink back in Fitchburg, only, this had different layers of flavor and after tastes that were so veried and exceptional. They love their wine over here as it's not uncommon to see people (after drinking a few glasses with their lunch) looking as gay as old saint nick: happily red-faced with that twinkle in their eye. Everyone's heard that doctors recomend a glass of red wine every day for good health. This combined with the smaller portions (enough wine with your meal to give you a buzz-but not make you emotional) makes for a nice stress-relieving, obviously socially acceptable break to the day-a behavior that some Americans might consider 'alcoholic.' Why are alcoholic spirits available at most small coffee and sandwitch shops here and not in the U.S.? I think in the states people are so stressed out from working their 9-5 and still living at a subsistance level that their only escape from that is to buy a 30-rack of cheep beer to drown their troubles. Again, evidence that Americans use alcohol (the last legal drug) as a way to de-stress, only after they have been stressed all day, or all week. More evidence that smaller portions, disspersed throughout the day of better quality beverages makes for a society who follow these age old cultures healthy, wealthy and wise.

Coffee Talk

Ever since I was 14 I've always enjoyed coffee. Pretty young, I'd say, but of course back then I'd start with half a cup of cream and a dozen sugers, and my dad used to joke, "So, your having some coffee with your sugar?" But over here, they have got real options when it comes to the different ways you can enjoy your cafe. Today I was lucky enough to try 'cafe zero' a semi frozen, pre-packaged drink that comes in mocha and two other flavors, which i found in a book store that was oddly reminicent of a 'Barnes and Noble'...but, fortunatly, no Starbucks in sight. No instead I walk in the store and actually pass the box-like freezer (that is just below my waist height) twice before I see the same, (I'd say, 6 oz.) 'cafe zero' cup as I spotted in the window. I'd seen people walking around with these and wondered if there were larger sizes, since this little number would be terrified of my usual too-large-to-fit-into my car's cup holder brownie-toffie with regular milk and sugar, and could you please kinda melt the ice with hot chocolate?...Should it really take two sentances, three breaths, and an average of 5-8 minutes to get your morning caffine fix? 'Just give me the coffe and no one gets hurt;' is an all-American quote I've seen in a few of my friend's parents kitchens. To me this traslates into the reality that the way we use coffee in the U.S. is primarily as a drug rather than a beverage to sip and enjoy. For me, going from being someone who drinks one of those 64oz'ers on a daily basis to having 2 shots of espresso during my entire day and feeling just as alert raises the question: Do Americans settle for larger quantities and less quality in their coffee market, if not their entire diet overall? I really am beggining to think so. If I can come to Verona, wake up every morning and take 2 minutes to make a little pot of esspresso (which is about 3 shots, probly enough for a couple) eat a piece of fruit, drink a 3 oz. yogurt, and have some nutella on two little peices of toast...why would i ever go back to the typical 500-800 calorie McDonal's breakfast...lol...I'm luvin' it. ;P

Bruschetta and Focaccia

Sometimes when I'm eating these delicious breads, I wonder if they weren't invented just to soak up all that delicious olive oil. You can get these pizza-like breads toped with pizza-like toppings at almost any restaurant in Verona, but I decided to try the Coppa Cafe's selection of Bruscetta. I went with the percutto, mushroom and (of course) mozzarella cheese version. It's so refressing to see ingrediants used in a very balanced way in the foods here: the bread was not too thick and it's actually more of a toast all the way through, so it doesn't feel too heavy in your stomache, you feel full, but not ever like you ate too much. I've noticed that not only with these bread based dishes, but with every traditional italian meal I've been served here. The faccacio i had was topped with fresh slices of what i think were grape or cherry tomatoes and fresh oragano and olive oil (of course, of course.) I found it in this little place at one end of the Via Roma and couldn't resist taking pictures of all the delicious kinds of bread, meat and cheese meals they had in their store front display. I wonder if the U.S. will ever forget their thick-crust-craze and follow in the better choice of fresher, healthier, tastier ingredients? Yeah, right.

Italy finds the secret to life, olive-ously

Ever since that cooking lesson at the professional culinary school with Chef Fulvio De Santa, I've learned to appriciate cooking with olive oil. While slightly more afforadable here verses typical American grocery stores, olive oil remains the favorite cooking oil of this well-respected chef (who, by the way, cooked for Pope Benedict while living at the Vatican for two weeks.) The great thing about olive oil is that it is made from a vegetable that contains no saturated fat-a claim that niether corn nor peanut oil can make. It is a great substitute for butter and margarine, even when making simple Italian-American snacks such as garlic bread (since this is not an authentic dish, we"ll call it Italian-American, really, it doesn"t exist over here, outside my kitchen, of course :). Since corn is subsidized (meaning farmers are paid more to produce it) in America, it can be found in almost every popular dish: from chickens being fed corn till they become chicken nuggets and then breaded with a corn-based coating, then fried in corn oil to the all-American french fry, it seems the U.S. has got it all wronge when it comes in comparison with the Mediterraeinian diet. When a society continually embraces their original food culture, manageing to hold onto it for thousands of years and in turn produces a healthier society than the U.S. it seems to me they're the one's who have found the secret to the fountain of youth. Statistics show that men in Italy who consume olive oil verses men in the U.S. who don't are less likly to suffer a heart attack and actually live longer. All these benefits, despite italian men enjoying their cigarettes and wine. It raises the question, does eating a diet low in saturated fat cancel out the adverse afects of smoking? Or is it not just the diet here, but the lifestyle as well? All I can say is I would love to have these working hours: 8am-1pm off from 1pm-3pm (a time when a meal and a nap is the norm) and then work from usually 3-6pm. I think the extended hours of daylight here may be another great benefit since you see people going out walking after the evening meal-the streets here are either senic or there's usually a community band or soloists playing in Piazza Urbe. In the end I think it all comes down to the climate: it's the perfect weather and the largest land area where olives can grow...and Italy is not about to give up her stress-free lifestyle that I think is owed to those tiny green miracles.

Truley perfect Parm

I was so excited to try my mom's recipe for homemade eggplant parmisian. I went to the Pam and picked up two fresh eggplants and barilla's tomato sauce (which my roomate managed to kick up a knotch with some peppers, onions and garlick sauteed in olive oil.) I sliced the eggplant as thinly as possible and coated each side of the disks with olive oil and fried them just until they were transperant and a little browned in the pan. We filled the foil baking sheet with a base layer of our perfected tomato sauce and layed the fried eggplant slices on top in three overlapping layers. I then added some more sauce to cover the top a little and then the fresh mozzarella cheese. After using our Macs to figure out what 450 degrees farinhight translated to celtcious, we were in business. After baking for about fifteen minutes with the aluminum foil on and then ten without, our browned, all-vegetarian meal came fresh out of the oven. We even added some rose wine to the boxed spagettii we made on the seggestion of Chef Fulvio De Santa-it really did the job of cleaning up the flavors by not letting the oils leave a greesy feel in our mouths. We were definately following in the tradition of slow food since all our ingrediants (except the boxed spagettii and jar tomato sauce) were freshly bought from the market and prepared from scratch that day. If I were to cook back in Fitchburg, I'd sadly be reaching for the box of Kraft Macaronni and cheese before I spent an hour of my day cooking. It was agreed that yes this culinary expirience did top Mex-italiano night.