Well, I spoiled myself with another cooking class this week. This time it was in the hills of Chianti, right outside of Florence. We (a group of mostly Americans) visited a family estate that produces, you guessed it, wine and olive oil. It is an old estate that was given to one of the popes at the time of the Medici. Since then, a wealthy family from Milan (in the textile industry) inherited the 2,000 acre property and use it to produce wine and olive oil for themselves. They do not live there, because they own many estates throughout Italy, and they divide their time between all of their properties.
We had a wonderful host, Alex, who taught us about the entire process of making olive oil – Tuscan style, of course. Then we visited the estate winery to sample the five house wines. For some reason, this seemed to take about two hours. Hmmmmm…..wine, olive oil drizzled on fresh baked bread, good conversation…I think this event could have easily lasted longer.
After our siesta, Alex took us up to Christiana’s house where we had our cooking class. He taught us how to make fresh pasta, namely spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli and tagliatelle. Chrisitana then cooked our pasta and served us a wonderful Tuscan dinner, complete with zucchini fritatta, faro salad, pizza, and gelato smothered in a sweet strawberry sauce.
