Up at 6:30am to get ready, eat our complimentary breakfast (they do make lovely cappacinos here!) then get on the bus by 8am. We had about a 20 minute ride then pulled up to what had been at one time a palace of sorts. The school, which is called the Italian Food Style Education Culinary Institute is just outside Torino. If you want to check it out, their website is www.ifse-world.com. The hotel is www.hotelguala.com. We were greeted by Rosanna Canobbio , who was our guide on the tour and is also our interpreter. All of our lessons are in Italian. I can understand some of what Chef Pietro is saying but nit all of it. Our first lesson started at 9am with Finger Foods. This was strictly a lecture and Demo. The chef showed us how to make "Orange-scented minced meat (raw veal) with a Parmigiano bisquit", "Shrimp lollipops with toasted sesame seeds", "Mini sweet burgers (turkey burgers) with old-style mustard", and "Light (in flavor not light fat) bang cakes with bell-pepper cream". Everything was delicious and not too difficult to make. Made me want to have a cocktail party! Chef Peitro's presentation was spectacular! I will come home with a few new tricks!
We had a break where they showed us how to make ourselves coffee, which is in fact espresso-no coffee, no crema (Mike's dad would be so proud of me drinking a real espresso!). It takes some getting used to but they are quite good. They do offer hot tea but it is very sweet. We were able to walk some of the grounds although the weather has turned quite cool. Somewhat if a shock after the too warm Rome!
Lunch was at 1pm. We were served a potato "thing" (they never did quite tell us what it was!) that looked like it had been baked in a muffin tin then turned out onto the plate. In the center was a "surprise" of chopped ham, with a sauce of pureed red pepper and/or tomatoes (not particularly good when culinarians can't tell what they are eating, lol!). The main course was an asparugus risotto served with a Chardonnay from the Piedmont region. For dessert we had Nougat Mousse (I know how to make that!).
After lunch and more espresso, we had a lecture on the different flours in Italy "0" and "00". Italy rates their flour on it's gluten level and on it's moisture content. Quite interesting! Then we made pizza dough, focaccia with Rosemary and "Farinata". The Farinata is made from chickpea flour, water, EVOO and sea salt (they do not use Kosher salt in Italy only sea salt). The dough is very watery and gets poured into round pizza pans and baked. After it bakes, the Farinata is sprinkled with black pepper, sliced like a pizza and served warm. It is surprisingly good and makes a nice first course or appetizer. We learned the Chef Peitro method tomaking pizza, nothing fancy. We each made our own Margherita pizza (tomato sauce, basil and mozzarella in an oven outfitted with a baking stone. The have very modern appliances here, using induction cooktops (imagine Kelly Rippa in the Electrlux commercials bragging about boiling water in 90 seconds-all true!) and Combi ovens. Amazing! They have a BIG machine that mixes and kneads dough, mimicking the actions of human hands. There is also a machine that just makes laminated doughs! The focaccia recipe was also good, but instead of just putting I've oil on top of the dough right before it is baked, they use water mixed with extra virgin olive oil for a moister and more flavorful dough, then sprinkle it with salt. They do not put the Rosemary on the bread until it is removed from the oven so it does not burn. The heat of the focaccia warms the fresh herb, adding flavor. We did not leave the IFSE until almost 6:30pm! A very long day! We were all too full of pizza and too tired to go out to dinner so we settled for having a glass of wine. It's nice to relax after a long day.
Tomorrow morning we will be in the kitchen, have lunch, then will be touring a "chocolate laboratory". Will fill you in tomorrow night with all the events of the day! (although it being nighttime here and morning in Nevada is still an odd concept! We are nine hours ahead of Reno here in Italy). Buona Serra everyone!
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