Cooking Lessons in Varenna--The Deal of the Century

Pumpkin and Amaretti Tortellini--Oh. My. God.

My love affair with Chef Moreno's cooking classes began in April of this year, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I had barely squeezed into Italy after a canceled flight due to the Iceland volcano, and so the whole trip had a slightly "I am one of the chosen ones" miraculous feel anyway.

But something seemed unbelievably miraculous about this cooking class, which I found online: I learned how to make three different dishes and their sauces: asparagus risotto, handmade tagliatelle with a tomato zucchini sauce, and gnocchi drenched in Gorgonzola cream. Then I got to eat them all. I also ate parmigiano and salami during the break (see photo on right), and had an unlimited amount of wine. Plus he gave us all the recipes for four servings, AND he gave us free pick-up and drop-off at the nearest train station. By the end of the day I'd spent five hours learning about Italian cuisine and anecdotes about the region, I was full on incredible homemade pasta, and--I admit it--I was slightly tipsy.

All for 35 Euros.

So it's not hard to imagine why I wanted to take one of my best friends, Marsha, to take a lesson when she came for a visit from Romania.The magic of my last trip somehow carried over to this one--we barely, unbelievably really, made all our train connections and ended up at the restaurant early, drinking cappucinos and soaking up the warmth of the quaint and cavernous room.

When delicious food meets delicious writing...

My talented friend and fellow M.F.A. graduate Rashaan Meneses recently wrote "Like Fish to Ginger" a lovely and haunting story about a Thai immigrant and the complex chemistry of food and romance. Read the first few paragraphs here, then click on the link for more. It's a beautiful read. The only downside is that now I'm dying for a bowl of curry...

Like Fish to Ginger

By Rashaan Meneses

Before I set out to make my mark in Los Angeles, I chased Sunee. We met in a steamy noodle house in the Dusit District of Bangkok where I elbowed my way from dishwasher to sous chef. Sunee worked as hostess. Both seventeen, she knew exactly what she wanted, and it wasn’t me. Like with a delicate soup, I had to know when to stir and when to let the ingredients meld on their own. For seven months I coaxed her to me, savoring every minute of it, the taste of falling in love. This was all ages ago when cooking was like breathing.

Orgasm in a Cup: The Marocchino

There are two kinds of people in the world, coffee drinkers and tea drinkers. I am definitely in the tea drinking camp. If you asked me to describe one of my favorite pleasures, I would say: Drinking a cup of tea--black with milk and honey in the morning and mint or rooibos in the afternoon and evening. Add a rainy day, a fantastic novel, snuggling on the couch, or chatting with friends, and I'm as happy as a Milanese woman with a new Furla purse.

The problem is, no one really drinks tea in Italy. This is the land of espresso. But it's not like I pictured it would be: people sitting around in cafes, chatting as they savored their cappuccinos and lattes. Oh no. That's France. In Italy, people drink coffee like they drive--friggin' fast. A typical Italian walks into a bar during her morning break, orders an espresso, then stands at the counter and kicks the coffee back like a shot of whiskey. She'll chat with her work friends for a few moments, finish off her brioche (croissant) then head back to work. There is no lingering.

Smoked Herring (Kipper) with Capers and Onions

You know the ol' "if you were stranded on an island" game, where you have to choose what you'd eat or what you'd read, which CD you'd listen to, or who you'd take with you? The one where you're forced to think deeply, and perhaps a bit pointlessly about the that you'd want with you forever and ever?

Okay, I admit it, I love to play it, especially when hiking long stretches of trail, or waiting for delayed trains, planes, and automobiles. I am usually quite horrible at it though, because when asked, I suddenly forget the name of every musician I love and every book I've ever read.

Food though--food I don't forget. I remember thinking long and hard about that one when asked a few years back. I thought about squash soup, dark chocolate, bread warm and fresh from the oven with butter spread on top...mmm...and the list goes on and on. But I finally decided that I'd be willing to live off of wild berries (we were being a bit generous with our categories) and smoked salmon. Yup, basically the diet of an Alaskan Grizzly bear.

Red Currant Spelt Muffini

No, that's not a typo in the title. Allow me to explain.

There are no such things as muffins in Italy. I keep asking around: "Hey--do you guys know what muffins are?" And they do, but only as some distant creation formed in strange tins in the United States. "What do you call them?" I asked my boyfriend one Sunday, as I prepared a batch of muffins for his virgin experience.

"We call them muffin," Guido replied.

"But what do you call them in plural? When there's more than one?"

"Muffin," he said, laughing.

Why I have a crush on Jamie Oliver

If you live in the States, I'm a little jealous. Not just because you're closer to my family, but because you can watch a television show that I am completely in love with:  Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

I am not the kind of girl that watches television--in fact, I've never owned one until I moved in with Guido, and we only used our basic cable once to watch the World Cup (Hey, I'm in Italy, what can I say?). So, thank goodness for airline entertainment. I was fortunate enough to watch the Food Revolution while traveling over the Atlantic on the way back from the United States. After watching the forty-minute pilot episode, I was totally inspired and moved by Jamie's mission to transform the unhealthy eating habits in the United States. Now this is the kind of television I can get behind.

Here's the premise of the show: Jamie travels to Huntington, West Virgina (population 50,000), recently named the unhealthiest city in America because of its high rate of obesity-related deaths. A 2008 report from the Center for Disease Control reported the following facts on Huntington: 45.5% of the residents over 20 were overweight (that's half!), 21.6% of those over 45 reported a diagnosis of coronary heart disease, and 13% of those over 18 had diabetes (the national rate is 7.8%). Jamie's goal is to try to get the residents to change their addiction to fast and unhealthy food and show them that with just a little extra effort their lives can be healthier and much, much longer.

Simple Squash Soup

I miss my dad. This time of year my dad and I both really love cooking and planning our big family gatherings like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Now that I'm in Italy, we'll have to plan our separate menus over the phone. Living in Italy is really wonderful, but I can't lie--being away from my family during the holidays hurts.

One dish my dad and I love to prepare this time of year is squash soup. It was a tough decision in the past, because he and I were the only ones who really enjoyed it. Growing up, my brothers were so much younger (by six and nine years) that the flavor didn't appeal to them. My mom wasn't crazy about eating a sweet soup either. In her mind, soup should be savory--like the gumbo she grew up with in the south--and squash soup was a strange anomaly that rebelled against her philosophy and taste. Squash soup was right up there with tapioca, or fish eyes and glue, as she used to call it.