Friday, February 25, 2011

Noodles are made from eggs and flour. Trust me. I'm an expert.

Well it has been all week since I've updated but my week has been busy with school (and procrastination) and somewhat uneventful. But not today!

The most exciting thing that happened was on Tuesday night my friend from high school Brooke who is studying in Arezzo (45 minutes away) came down to have dinner and stay the night, so that was fun catching up! She taught me how to say Basto! Which means something like Enough! Go away! So this is useful when guys make comments and wont stop bugging you. For example she used it when we went out to get drinks and a guy wouldn't leave us alone. Basto! Ha!

I also made my best painting yet on Wednesday! Pictures to come... but I am actually proud of it. It turned out nice. Or as nice as an orange and pear can turn out.

Allora, on to today. Well, last night. Maddy and I attended a free wine tasting near by after my class got out at 5:30 but after that, Maddy and Shandie left for the Swiss Alps at around 11 pm and so sadly I was left alone in the apartment. It was weird, but I survived :) This morning I woke up bright and early because my study abroad program (ISA) offered us a FREE 2 hour guided tour of the Uffizi. Obviously I went. I actually already knew most of what he talked about but I still learned a lot, and bought a book that talks about every piece in their permanent collection and its history (I'm already 30 pages in!) so it was well worth it! Afterwards I grabbed some lunch and headed across the river to Pitti Palace! This is where the Medici family lived during their rule in Florence (you should know who this family is. If not, I am disappointed and you need to google them. Just kidding, but seriously they are the reason most of the Renaissance art was patroned/created here. They ruled Florence for about 300 years. Important people). The Palace was AMAZING and so close. Literally right past Ponte Vecchio. I only got to see a tiny bit because I ran out of time. But here are some pictures I stole...







The better rooms, the amazing rooms with tons and tons and tons of art, had too many guards around so I couldn't take pictures, and there are may more museums connected to it, like one with all of the jewels and one of costumes... I'm excited to go back. But I say I ran out of time because I had to go make my cooking class with ISA! Luckily I made some friends there to cook with, and it was a BLAST. I had a "special" menu because I don't like cheese or spinach, both of which were going into the ravioli we were making, so instead the chef helped me make a garlic-rosemary-potato filling with a hint of tomato paste (what you use to make tomato sauce) to put inside. He also taught me how to shape mine into tortellini instead of ravioli like everyone else's. It had a butter/basil sauce on top, and it was heaven. But backing up, we made some eggplant thing with chopped up veggies and a little potato as an appetizer which surprisingly I liked! I just didn't add the cheese. And then made the noodles from scratch! So cool, we had to make a little mountain of flour, create a whole in the middle and then put egg inside, and the whisk it together, the mix it, the smash it, then roll it all out, the put it through a flattening machine a bunch of times, then cut it, THEN it was ready to add the filling to it. And I now know how to roll up a tortellini :) And dessert was tiramisu, which is a lot of egg yolk, cream cheese, sugar and maybe some other things else all beat up then folded, the you dip ladyfingers in coffee mixed with brandy and add them in, then put them in the freezer and whala! Delicious!






Well Brooke will be here soon because we are going to Milan tomorrow for fashion week! So I'll update again when we get back! Ciao!

No comments:

Post a Comment