Cooking Class!

Florence University of the Arts (my school here in Italy) offered a free cooking class for their students, and I just wanted to share some photos and recipes with you all from this experience! The entire class was so fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed such an authentic Italian experience. Anyone who knows me well knows cooking is my true passion, so this was just the event for me! The recipes for the homemade pasta and sauce, chicken cacciatore, and cake are listed below.😊

Tagliatelle al Pomodoro

Ingredients: (serves 4)

-200 gr semolina (durum wheat flour)

-2 eggs

-2 gr salt

Directions: Arrange the flour in a mold on a flat surface, creating a crater in the middle. Break the eggs in the middle and sprinkle with salt. Mix them together rigorously until you obtain a smooth texture. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes, wrapped in plastic film. Then, roll the pasta dough and cut it through the pasta machine to form tagliatelle. Optionally, stretch it out using a rolling pin. Sprinkle the layer surface with flour and roll it up in a spiral. Cut the spiral using a knife into strips, trying to make them as uniform in length and width as possible. Unwind them, and keep them separated and floured to prevent them from sticking together.

Salsa di Pomodoro
Ingredients:
-2 lb ripe tomatoes
-3 garlic gloves
-1.5 oz extra virgin olive oil
-4 fresh basil leaves
-salt to taste

Directions: Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for 1 minute. Put them in cold water to stop the cooking. Peel them, cut in wedges, remove the seeds and puree them. In a saucepan, sauté the garlic cloves in oil until golden. Add the pureed tomatoes, salt, and cook for about ten minutes, depending on variety and ripeness. Add the basil at the end of cooking, off from the heat.

Pollo alla Cacciatora
Ingredients: (serves 4)
-1 medium size chicken
-17 oz pureed tomatoes
-1/2 cup dry red wine
-1 big red sliced red onion
-2 crushed cloves of garlic
-1/3 fennel seeds
-4 oz black olives
-2 oz extra virgin olive oil
-freshly ground black pepper and salt

Directions: Wash and clean the chicken and cut it up into little pieces. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion and gently cook for 5 minutes, then add the garlic and fennel seeds. Add the chicken and brown it. Pour in the wine and let the alcohol evaporate. Add the tomato sauce, salt, and pepper. Cook, covered, on low heat for about 1/2 hour, then add the olives. Cook for 20 minutes further. Serve immediately.

Schiacciata alla Fiorentina
Ingredients: (serves 8-10)
-4 1/2 oz sugar
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup milk
-3 oz flour
-2 tbsp baking powder
-grated zest of 1 orange
-4 tbsp olive oil
-2 tbsp orange juice

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350℉. Beat the eggs and the sugar until they turn white and form a ribbon. Add the olive oil. Mix well. Sift the baking powder with the flour. Alternate adding flour, milk, orange zest, and orange juice. Mix well. Pour into a rectangular pan (greased) and place in the oven, and bake at 350℉ for 30 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out dry).

My First Visitor (London comes to Italy)

Ciao! Finally, I am able to tell about my first visitor here in Florence, none other than Lee Jarrold! I am so thankful and lucky to have a friend over here in Europe to visit me and make me feel a little more at home! Seeing a familiar face makes a huge difference when being so far away from most friends and family, and I cannot thank Lee enough for coming!
We began Lee's time here by simply doing a walking tour around Florence, visiting Piazza della Signoria, which is full of outdoor sculptures, Santa Croce, and also walking along the Ponte Vecchio. The main event of the night was that I took Lee out to dinner with all of my friends here abroad, and we picked a restaurant that supposedly had free wine for study abroad students. Well, it turns out the rumor was true, and the restaurant continuously poured FREE WINE for the 13 of us at the table. Dreams really do come true people 🍷. I am willing to admit that the food was okay, not necessarily award winning, but I repeat... FREE WINE! (Don't worry, I took Lee out for good meals later in the weekend). After dinner, my friends and I took Lee to La Carraia, our favorite gelateria. This was Lee and I's second gelato of the day, and trust me when I say we have no regrets. After gelato, we wandered back to our side of the river to show Lee our favorite bars. While some girls went back to their apartments to get changed, I took Lee to a popular bar for study abroad students that has a custom shot for every American university. So, naturally, I ordered Lee and myself the Providence College shot. This bar has an entire ceiling covered in tshirts of every college, and each shirt is filled with layers of signatures of study abroad students. We spent time looking for the PC shirt, but to no avail. Once our friends were finished getting ready, we went to the bar that is across the street from my apartment, the Red Garter. This is a karaoke bar, and my favorite place to go on the weekends. One half is simply the bar side with dance/club music playing and people standing all squished together, and the other half has wooden tables and benches with rafter seating, all in view of a small stage for the karaoke performers. Most people are terrible, but some are amazing, (shoutout to my friend Molly Powers who always ends her performances with a standing ovation). All night long Lee and I kept joking that someone needed to sing the song "Wonderwall" by Oasis, and eventually my friends and I convinced Lee he should go up and do it himself! With the help of some encouragement from my friends and I, the promise of Molly singing with him, and a little bit of liquid courage, he did it!! It was amazing and hilarious and the crowd was very into it; the whole place was belting it out right along with Lee and Molly. And now, Lee can say he sang at the Red Garter, a signature stop on the Julia Miller Florence Tour.
The next day, the weather was great, so Lee and I decided to take a hike through the Tuscan countryside together. The views were absolutely stunning, and it was great to get some fresh air and out of the city for awhile. The hike ended with the beautiful Castello Vincigliata, which Lee and I did not at the time know was private property...oops! Once we made it to the entrance of the castle at the end of the hike, we realized that people looked to be setting up for a wedding. A woman who saw us peeking in the door told us we could come inside if we were quick, but that the wedding started in an hour. Lee and I couldn't help ourselves, and after walking around the courtyard we decided to try and sneak past the people setting up the dining room for the wedding to get to the stairs that led to the top of the castle. We made it past them discreetly, and were able to look out at the most beautiful view of Florence I had seen yet. We ended up overstaying our welcome a bit, and when we finally realized how long we had stayed and headed downstairs, we were caught by one of the wedding planners. He began yelling at us in rapid Italian, so we just hustled past him right out the door and left. Now, I can check wedding crashing off my bucket list! As we made our way back down the hike, the actual vans filled with the bridal party and guests drove past, and we realized how truly close we were to legitimately crashing a wedding. All's well that ends well though, and now we have a memorable story to tell.
The last day that Lee was here we climbed to the top of the bell tower, which is right next to the Duomo. Initially we were going to go to the top of the dome, but it was sold out, so we bought tickets to do the bell tower instead. This ended up being fine, because by doing the bell tower we were able to get a gorgeous eye level view of the Duomo, and a look over the city of Florence. The stairs were exhausting, steep, and narrow, but the view was completely worth it. Also, on a mostly unrelated note, I completely understand why Italians can eat pasta and pizza and gelato while remaining rail thin... are you not connecting the dots by now how much walking and stair climbing goes on around here?! Lee and I checked our steps at the end of every day and it was always almost in the 20,000s! It works for me just fine though, because you better believe my answer is always yes when it comes to Italian food. Speaking of food, to end Lee's trip, we went out to a great dinner right next to the Duomo. A man sat near the restaurant playing violin the whole time, and it was an awesome way to end what was an amazing weekend. Now, I just owe Lee a trip over to London!  

Positano

Ciao everyone! I am happy that I get to write the fun post to go along with this weekend now, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much I have enjoyed remembering it while writing this!
For this trip I was with a guided tour,  so on that Friday morning they loaded us all on the bus and drove from our hostel to Positano. The views getting there were amazing, and we all knew we were in for a treat. The bus was barely squeezing through the winding roads, and it felt like we were teetering on the edge of a cliff the entire time. Positano bus drivers, I do not want your job! Once the bus ride was over, we walked down to the beach section, and the view was just as amazing from down there as it was from up above. The houses go up and up the face of the cliffs, in a terraced, pyramid type shape. My friends and I immediately went to one of the stands set up for booking boat rides, because we had heard from friends who had visited last week that it was a very fun activity and a good way to see the coast from the water. We were able to book a small dingy type boat for 7 people, and it included a 2 hour trip around the coast, with stops along the way for swimming in caves, cliff jumping, and beautiful views. For the cliff jumping, we just swam out on to whatever shore was closest, and walked up the sides of the terrain until we were as high as we liked. In a very uncharacteristic move, perhaps due to the delirium caused by my fever (refer to Trip Fail post), I was the first one of the group to take the plunge! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt pretty brave, until of course when back on the boat the elderly captain let me know he was disappointed and has jumped from double the height. The good news is, I was still on such an adrenaline high of being in such a picturesque place jumping into clear blue water that my experience was not soured by an unimpressed old boat driver. There were also two stops where we were able to jump into the water, and swim into the sides of the cliffs where there were caves carved out. The way that the light comes in to the gives and reflects off the bottom of the ocean floor made the water an intense, glowing shade of blue, and swimming through it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. While we were swimming inside one of the bigger caves, where we were completely alone and looking up at the enormous cavern above us, listening to the sound of the waves lapping against the walls, we couldn't help but be awestruck that this is what our lives are like right now. While most PC students are at school going to the library and maybe enjoying a day trip to Boston or Newport, I was swimming in a cave off the coast of Italy. It was in that moment that all of us realized how monumental what we were getting to do was. Studying abroad has plenty of hardships that come with being in a foreign country away from friends and family, but I will never regret my decision to come here. What I live every day is truly a once in a lifetime experience, and I work not to take that for granted. None of this experience felt real, and it really is amazing to see what natural beauty the world has to offer.
 After the boat ride, we went to a stand that sells granita, which is an icy slush that is typically a flavored with fruit. I had a lemon granita, and it was so refreshing after being in the sun all day. We spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach and soaking up the sun, and were all exhausted by the time we boarded the buses that afternoon. I may have missed the following trips to Capri and Pompeii due to being sick, but the experiences I had in Positano have given me plenty of memories to look back on.