The Florentine Life

Ciao! I know it has been awhile since my last post, and believe it or not, I haven't even travelled anywhere! This last weekend was our first weekend in Florence since we first got here and it was so nice to just relax and be a tourist in our own city! On Friday, my best friend Alex who is studying in Rome came to visit. Some of her friends from her school are also studying in Florence so she stayed with them. On Friday night I met some of her friends at this Mexican restaurant called Tijuana for happy hour. The drinks were huge and the nachos were not bad!
Then we went and pregamed at her friend Lucie's apartment (which literally looks straight out onto the front of the duomo) Then, we went to a club called 21 where I got to meet more of her friends and she got to meet all of my roommates. We also went to the secret bakery that night....I think that was our third trip so far. You have to go everytime someone visits! The secret bakery we went to was near Santa Croce and you give them a euro and tell them whether you want Ciaccolata or Crema and it's literally heavenly and warm. Here's a pic from one of our visits...
Then, on Saturday I met Al at the duomo and I took her to my favorite neighborhood bar where Mikey and I go every morning before Italian class to get our Americanos. We got cappuccinos and then walked around some more and I just showed her where I go to school and stuff. Then, for lunch I took her to one of my favorite panini shops called Antico Noe where I made her get the number 9: turkey, brie, caramelized onions, and spicy sauce. So good. Then I took her up to my apartment to see if my roommates had woken up yet. Then they wanted to get lunch before we did our duomo climb so we went to another panini shop called Antico Vanaio where the sandwiches are HUGE. Almost too big for me. But they were delicious. Then we made our way to the duomo where Al ran into her friends from school who were also going to climb it so it worked out that we were all up their together. What a view. I only got a little claustrophobic on the way up, but other than that I was ok!

On the way up...Colleen is
holding it together.

Hello Firenze!

Roomies at the top of the Duomo!

After the duomo, we toured the Santa Croce which is a beautiful church very close to my apartment. Michelangelo, Galileo, Macchiavelli, and Dante are buried inside. It was so cool to see the different tombs.

Machiavelli's Tomb

Dante's Tomb

Galileo's Tomb

Michelangelo's Tomb

Courtyard View

Courtyard

After Santa Croce, Al wanted to go meet her friends up by the Piazza Michelangelo to watch the sunset from across the river so Mikey and I walked her there since our favorite church is near there where we go on our runs. We saw the most beautiful views....

Then, later that night we went out to dinner to one of the restaurants in Florence known for their Florentine steak which is with a blueberry sauce. We went with the four of us, our guy friend who was visiting from Cornell, and Alex and her friend Danielle. We ordered a pasta sampler for the whole table where they brought out five different pastas in rounds including: a gorgonzola risotta, a broccoli pasta, a caramelized onion ragu sauce, a Bolognese sauce, and a spicy arrabbiata sauce. Then for the main entree...everyone ordered steak except for me who ordered chicken. I did try the blueberry sauce and I thought it was a little overpowering. My chicken was drenched in this amazing port red wine reduction that was everyone's favorite sauce. The presentation was lacking but the flavor was amazing.

Then, that night we went to a night club called Space which was crazy and fun. We met a few Italian creepers but had a blast.

Sunday morning, I met Al for breakfast at this place called The Diner which is pretty much like an American diner in Florence. You can get omelettes, pancakes, french toast, iced coffee. Everything is pretty delicious but everyone speaks English and it is rare to see an Italian there. But, it's still worth it every once in awhile. Then Al and I walked around and she bought some leather gloves near the Ponte Vecchio and then we went to mass at Santa Croce at 6pm that night. Overall, it was a great weekend in Florence and I can't wait till my family gets here in 10 days so I can show them around!  Tomorrow we leave again for Brussels, Belgium where we are going to this huge concert called Sensation on Saturday...can't wait!!

xoxo,
Alli

Food Porn Daily

Hello! Some of you may be wondering what I have been doing besides travelling and I wanted to explain by mainly pictures but a few descriptions as well. The title of this post comes from one of my favorite websites that I view on a daily basis. Food Porn daily is a website that puts up a new photo everyday and it looks so mouthwatering and delicious you can almost taste it, and you are instantly hungry. Hence, the food porn. Anyways, you should check it out if you're ever bored and kind of hungry. These pictures won't be quite as good as the ones on the website but I tried! I've taken a picture of everything I've cooked so far so here is a quick summary to get you caught up. I'll go through my four classes:

Food, Culture, and Society: The third week of class we went on a walking tour to one of the markets and got to do an oil and balsamic vinegar tasting. So, that day there was no cooking. The next week was all about aperitivo, which is basically the Italian version of a happy hour. It is like 2 hours before dinner and you eat small portions and drink wine to "open" up your stomach to prepare for the full meal. How Italians stay so thin is beyond me....  Anyways, we made an appetizer called coccole which is essentially fried pizza dough balls that you serve with stracchino cheese and prosciutto. Stracchino cheese is a cow's milk cheese that resembles the inside of brie. It's very creamy but has a mild flavor and is delicious. And the other appetizer we made was called Cecina al Rosmarino with Pepe Nero. This was essentially a flat bread that is made with chickpea flour, rosemary, olive oil, and black pepper. And it was delicious and chewy from the use of the chickpea flour. I don't have a picture of the coccole but here is the Cecina al Rosmarino:

Cecina Al Rosmarino

The next week, which was this week, we made my favorite: Zuppa di farro e verdure. This is a traditional tuscan soup with farro and vegetables. One of my favorite soups I have had since I have been here is the traditional tuscan ribollita soup which is bread soup made with carrots, cannellini beans, black cabbage, leeks, celery, and olive oil. This soup reminded me of that except we added farro instead of the bread. You literally just sautee carrots, celery, leeks, and cherry tomatoes in olive oil. Add farro. Then you puree half of the cannellini beans that you cook with sage and garlic to thicken the soup and add the whole beans as well. Then add the black cabbage at the end. And drizzle a rosemary olive oil on top at the end. So filling, yet so healthy! Literally my favorite thing I've made thus far.

Zuppa di Farro e Verdure

Moving on to Chocolates, my favorite class of the week. The third week was our first class where we actually cooked. We made chocolate souffles and a flourless chocolate cake with homemade strawberry sauce. So simple, and so good...the pictures speak for themselves.

Chocolate Souffle

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The second week we learned what it means to temper chocolate. When making chocolate it is important to make sure that the right kind of crystallization happens so the chocolate has the right scheen and snap. A good chocolate should be shiny and when you break it, it should have a hard snap. Tempering is a process where you heat the chocolate up in a double boiler, then pour it onto a marble slab and scrape it to cool it down, then return it to the double boiler to heat it back up again....and this gives you the perfect chocolates.

Dark Chocolates

Chocolate Covered Candied
Orange Peel

White Chocolate Lollipop with
Pistachio and Black Sesame Seeds

Lavender Dark Chocolates

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Tarts

 And then, this week we did more tempering of chocolate but also learned all about ganache, which is the filling to truffles. We made homemade lavender truffles by making a milk chocolate lavender ganache and filling dark chocolates with them. We also made dark chocolate hazelnut tarts with dark chocolate ganache. Too delectable for words.....



Moving on to Tuesday.....Pastas. Week 3 was probably the only thing I've had that I wasn't in love with. We made Tortellini in Brodo, which is essentially Tortellini in broth. Sounds good enough....except for what the tortellini was filled with. It was a combination of pork, parma ham, and mortadella, which is Italian bologna. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not a huge pork or beef eater, so obviously this wasn't my favorite. But, I'm in Italy, so of course I tried it. It stared with beef bones and rabbit bones to make a delicious beef broth with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Then we made homemade pasta dough for the tortellini and combined the three meats in a blender with parmesan cheese and then filled the pasta and made the homemade tortellinis. Then you serve the tortellinis in the broth.

Tortellini in Brodo

Week 4 was all about Gnocchi and Gnudi. The word gnocchi actually is also a slang word in Italian for when you want to call a guy or girl "hot" or "sexy" Like if I thought a guy was hot I would say he was "gnochho" and if a guy thought it was hot they would say I was "gnoccha." I thought that was pretty funny, I guess its because the shape of gnocchi is cute. So, this day in class we made Gnocchi con salsiccia e cavolo nero. This is gnocchi with sausage and black cabbage. Unfortunately, every sausage in Italy is made with fennel in it (finnochio). But don't get me wrong, this dish was still delicious. We also made gnudi with ricotta and spinaci with butter and sage sauce. Gnudi is so easy to make and it essentially naked ravioli.

Gnudi con Ricotta e Spinaci

Gnocchi con Salsiccia e
Cavolo Nero

 And then this week! I also forgot to tell you how good of friends me and the chef have become over the past five weeks. Chef Desi picked up early on that I am super interested in cooking since I was always peering over his shoulder, asking him questions, and taking more of an interest than most of the other kids who are taking this class for fun. So, he has now started calling me his "Executive Chef" and puts me in charge of my group most days. Sometimes he calls me "Exec", sometimes Allison, sometimes Paige, and sometimes he just calls me Gottwalt, thanks to Colleen. So I have four different names when I am in Chef Desi's kitchen. I always have the most fun in his class! This week we made Ravioli di Zucca and Ravioli agli Spinaci. Ravioli with Pumpkin and Ravioli with Spinach and Ricotta. Both were good but the pumpkin ravioli was more like dessert ravioli. It had crushed amaretti cookies and candied fruit in the filling which was interesting. It was also served with and orange butter. But both were still very good...just a lot of butter for the sauce. Thank god I went on a 2 mile run after eating these dishes!

Ravioli with Spinach and Ricotta

Ravioli di Zucca

Ok, now I know you're probably sick of all this food by now but one more class! Keep in mind that I only eat a few bites of each of these....haha
Contemporary Italian Cooking: Week 3 we went on a walking tour but week 4 we made another one of my favorite dishes! Ravioli Verdi di verdure con salsa al Pomodoro. This was essentially spinach ravioli stuffed with vegetables and served with a tomato sauce and fried eggplant on top for a garnish! So delicious and perfect....

Ravioli Verdi di Verdure

And we're almost done! Today in class we made a contemporary dessert! Tre gusti per un dolce. It was one dessert with three flavors. We first made creme brulee, then chocolate mousse, then coffee bavarian cream. Then we layered them and let them set. Then we turned them over onto the plate and garnished with hardened sugar and chocolate. If we had had more time, they would have set more but here it is....

Tre Gusti per un dolce

Hope you are all salivating by now....then I did my job!!! Thanks for bearing with me through all of that and hope you enjoy all the pics! I realize I look like a complete fatty but hey, I'm in Italy, what's a girl to do??!

Salute!
Alli

Adventures in the Swiss Alps

Well I'm back from another weekend adventure! This time it was Interlaken, Switzerland, and it was a beautiful (but cold) winter wonderland! We left on Thursday night again around 7:30pm and arrived around 3:30am at the Funny Farm Hostel. This hostel wasn't quite like our fusion hostel in Prague...think musty, old-fashioned, medieval, outdated hotel and you'll get the Funny Farm. There was nothing really too funny about it at all. We checked into our room which had two twin beds side by side and a bunk bed and we went straight to bed. Of course, I got the bottom bunk and all we had to sleep with was a tiny little blanket that was faded and gross. It was what my family and I might call, "rude." And I am proud to say that term was used a lot this weekend by the four of us. I showed them how rude can be used to describe much more than just impoliteness but it can be used to describe your greasy face after sitting on a bus for 8 hours, or the crusty blanket you're given at a hostel called the funny farm. I think I'm converting them. Anyways, we woke up at 8am to get ready for a full day of skiing. We went to the rental place to get snowpants, jackets, gloves, helmets, goggles, skis, and poles. All that for under 200 dollars and that included our lift ticket, not too bad. Then we took a bus to a train station where we literally took 3 more trains before we finally reached the mountain called Grindelwald. It was around noon when we finally hit the slopes. Now, picture this: one expert skier, 2 decent skiers, and one who has never skied before in the Swiss alps unable to read any confusing maps and signs. That was us. It was quite the adventure, but after many falls down some hills that were definitely not for beginners, Mikey mastered the pizza plow and we were very impressed! Colleen probably was bored on some of the hills since she's been downhill skiing since she was like 5, but we didn't want to separate for fear that we'd never find eachother again. Here are some pics from our day:

After an exhausting day, we headed back to the hotel starving since we had not had time to get lunch because we wanted to have maximum time on the mountain. We went to dinner at a place in town called Brasserie 17 where we enjoyed an entire pitcher of local beer and then ordered wings, soups, and salads. We were so happy to be inside and warm for the first time all day. That night, we crashed and went to bed early.

Day 2, Saturday: Day Trip to Bern

We woke up around 8:30, got coffee and then met our tour leader in the lobby of the hostel. We then took a bus at 10am to the capital of Switzerland, Bern for the day. Bern was a really cool, medieval city. When we got there, the first thing we did was go to a museum called the Kunst Art Museum where we saw artwork by Picasso and Salvador Dali. Them we went and had lunch at this tiny little restaurant where we enjoyed eggplant, parmesan, and arugula paninis. After lunch we went on our most important mission: to get Colleen chocolate. We went to this chocolate shop that would let you sample slabs of so many different flavored chocolates. Colleen got almost 25 dollars worth of chocolate for sure. I also got the best pistachio truffle I've had in my life...it had like pistachio flavored marzipan inside and was so creamy and delicious. Then we went to the Albert Einstein Museum which was actually inside Einstein's actual apartment from when he and his first wife first moved to Bern. It was cool to learn all about his life in both Europe and the US. After the Einstein haus, we got back on the bus to head back to Interlaken. 

 That night, we had the front desk make us a reservation at a restaurant that was supposed to have really good Swiss food. It was called the Goldener Anker. I wouldn't say it was amazing, but I also was sick the whole weekend and couldn't taste anything but my french onion soup still felt really good on my throat! Dana got some sort of pan fried chicken, and Colleen and Mikey got a chicken stew with mangoes....not sure this was really Swiss food but it was good!

 Day 3, Sunday: Long walk to find a lake....
So we weren't scheduled to leave on our bus home until 2pm on Sunday so we decided we would do something until then. We had heard of this beautiful lake nearby and so we asked for the directions. We were told to just follow the river all the way until we found the lake. But I think people failed to mention how long this would take....we were literally trudging through snow not even sure if we were going the right way for almost an hour. But, I tried to suck it up and not complain too much and it was so worth it when we got there and saw the breathtaking views.

The long walk

The beautiful view!

 So that was Interlaken! It was this adorable little ski town and although it was cold, it was worth it and so beautiful in so many ways! Can't believe I have already been gone a month...time is flying by!! Later this week I will update you on all my culinary adventures:) I am so excited to stay in Florence this weekend and looking forward to seeing my best friend Alex who is coming to visit me from Rome. And then after that, our next adventure will be Brussels, Belgium!! Bring on the waffles....

xoxoxo
Alli