Day Four:Cooking Class in Umbria
Paula showed up at Cafe Tullia (a neighborhood joint) about half an hour late. Part of me was expecting her at Italian Standard Time (which means, she took her time to get to me) and I was right.
Paula cooks for a fancy catering place and had agreed to teach me a few local Umbrian dishes. We were going to shop for ingredients and then come back to the apartment to cook dinner. It was all very exciting but there was just one problem- Paula didn’t speak a word of English and I am not conversant in Italian. “How bad could it be, I thought”.
She took me to 5 different stores to shop for two kinds of pasta, salad, a meat dish and dessert. It was great to be able to accompany a local person and watch how things happen in a different country. Everyone had a smile on their faces and were in absolutely no hurry to get anywhere. Living in the Eastcoast, I am so used to rushing everywhere- this was a pleasant change. We went to two different grocery stores to buy flour, vegetables, etc. She also took me to a special cheese shop to buy the milk, cream, mascarpone cheese and parmesan cheese. We then stopped at a huge meat store to purchase a huge leg of lamb. The whole time she was talking to me in Italian and I was nodding pretending to understand her- I probably understood 50% of what she said to me. It was quite an experience for me- she seemed like a very sweet lady who works extremely hard to make a living.
We came home with all the ingredients a few hours later and deposited everything in the fridge. Paula was to come back at 4:30 PM to start cooking. She walked in with her husband carrying a few bags of equipment including her pasta maker. She also brought us a huge tray of green figs from her garden- they were delicious!
We started cooking around 5 and didn’t begin eating till about 9 or 9:30.
We feasted on panzenella salad, tortellini stuffed with a combination of chicken, pork and veal- it was served in a vegetable broth. A tomato pasta came after that topped with parmesan cheese. The last course was the huge tray of the most aromatic lamb and roast potatoes. It was the most delicious lamb preparation I had ever had!
While we were eating, Paula made extra tortellini and pasta for us to eat the next day. We cleaned up, thanked her and proceeded to the garden to enjoy our dessert!
It was a wonderful day full of learning new techniques and enjoying some great local foods. I will give more details on the recipes in the coming weeks including lots of pictures. Stay tuned.
