Saturday dawned early for us as Kiyomi and I were off to Chef Paulo Monti's Cooking School for a crash course in pasta. It was a half day course, so I was expecting that we'd prepare a couple of sauces and try our hand at a pasta or two. Boy, was I off the mark. By the end of out time with Chef Paulo, we had made 12 sauces and 5 different flavours of pasta, and 5 or 6 different shapes.
The day started by meeting the chef, who was fashionably late, at about 8 in front of his restaurant. Kiyomi and I were joined by a trio of ladies from New Mexico - a mother and daughter trip to Italy with 3 generations. We had all been standing there for about 15 minutes when the chef pulled up. Seems he had miscounted now many of us had also signed up for the market tour, so when he saw there was 5 of us, he sat the ladies in the back and Kiyomi and I rode shotgun with her on my lap. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. She is so tall on my lap now that I can't see anything, so whatever near misses there were, I was blissfully oblivious about.
The "market" was not what I had expected. I was imagining a big open air marke with produce, meat, cheese and all the smells and chaos that entails. But it was actually a wholesale store for restaurants, basically a costco-like store with memeberbship only open to restauranteurs, and an 80s soundtrack on the PA system. Anything needed to run or even start a restaurant could be found at this market. Never mind soup to nuts, this market had cheese to industrial stoves and everything imaginable in between. And they are serious about it as well, as evidenced by the fact that we were asked not to take any photos inside the store. We visited produce, all of which was a much higher grade that what we typically see at our local grocery store, got tips on how to buy fresh fish (it's all in the eyes), learned about parmigiana in a massive refrigerated cheese room, oogled big hunks of prosciutto, and even learned what type of flour is best for which type of cooking (interesting that Manitoba flour is the preferred for cakes and croissant).
After that, it was back to the kitchen where chef Paolo had us going full tilt. The restaurant is on the outskirts of Lucca and is set up with a teaching kitchen as well as a main one. Once the 5 of us tromped into the teaching kitchen, we were immediately set to work chopping, while Paulo regaled us with pun after pun. He tried particularly hard to impress Kiyomi, but with every pun, she'd just stare at him blankly.
At one point, she did lean over to me and say "these yolks are cracking me up", so in spirit she was there, but her face was betraying none of that. We started with stock, before moving on to 3 basic tomato sauces that were the basis for many of the others. When we were all done, we had 11 pots of sauce in all and had already chowed down each on a plate of carbonara that we had helped make.
After sauces, it was fresh pasta, and again, it seemed in no time we were staring at 5 balls of colourful pasta dough. We rolled, cut, stuffed and then tada! Large plates of beautifully coloured and shaped pasta ready for cookin'.
I still don't know whether pasta is indeed really easy to make or if the chef just made it look easy. Of course it helps when you get to ring a little bell, and out pops a sous chef to do your bidding, and Paulo made use of that bell many times over the course our time with him. I think I've decided rather than the fancy pasta rollers or the great sauce pots, I want me one of those bells!
After the cooking came the eating. It was at this point that I realized it is indeed possible to overdose on pasta. Even though we were getting small portions of each, by the 5th or 6th sample, I was starting to feel sauces coming out my ears. Not that it stopped me of course. Kiyomi had the good sense to stop around the 5th or 6th, but I had helped make each one of those sauces and I was damned if I wasn't going to try them all. I needed to be rolled out of that kitchen in a wheelbarrow. I've heard of meat sweats before, but I think I experienced a pasta coma. By the time we made it home, all I could do was sit on the couch and digest.
While Kiyomi and I were busy learning the pasta secrets of an Italian kitchen, Kohji and Ren rented bikes for a toodle along Lucca's Fiume Serchio (river than runs through the newer part of Lucca). I'm glad I wasn't along for this particular venture. I don't think I could have handled watching a helmet less Ren (don't have the here unless you're renting a serious road bike), negotiate some of those narrow streets to get along the river.
To offset some of the pasta catatonia, I managed to haul out my running shoes and went for a very short run with a number of Luchessi on the wall. It was a pleasant late afternoon, not too hot, and enjoyable trotting along the top of the wall, allowing a little more blood to flow to my stomach. That said, I was more than happy that we stayed in for dinner, and that we decided to make rice and meatballs, of which I ate very little. The evening was capped off by watching Real Madrid loose to Fiorentina. Seems Premier League started again on August 15, so I'm taking advantage of our big screen tv!
On Sunday, we headed 40 minutes up the A11 to Firenze. Although Kohji and I had been there just last year, we thought it would be fun to take the kids. Florence is really like a massive outdoor museum, so what a better way to take the kids to a museum than one that they can run, laugh, even screech in without creating undo stress.
Last time we had been there, we hadn't experienced Florence on a Sunday in the middle of August. While thankfully not sweltering, the scores of people in the main piazza in front of the Duomo was surreal! Looking at the marvel that is the Duomo (spectacular carved relief in marble, elegantly chiseled columns) was near impossible without being jostled and having to jockey for viewing position. It actually became far more entertaining to watch the illegal vendors scatter every time the Carabinieri came by.
We moved on to the piazza dela Signiori which is home to Neptune, David and Medusa among others. The kids did seem to enjoy the startuary, and shockingly, there weren't even any giggles or comments about naked men! Perhaps it was because it was harder to see from their vantage point with the number of people crowded around, but not a peep about male or female anatomy.
After lunch from a sandwich shop just across the Arno River, and gelato of course, we headed for the rather calmer and cooler Boboli Gardens behind the Petti Palace, the former home of the Medici clan. The gardens are formal, grandiose and just the ticket for a reprief from the crowds. We spent a good couple of hours exploring, and took in the views from the top of the park - one over Florence itself, the other into the Tuscan hills.
The Gardens are actually built on a bit of a hill, so you climb as you stroll through them.
There are tree canopies, wonderful over the top fountains, arched bushes that leave the impression of being pulled along as you move through them, and large stone or marble statues or hidden gargoyles at every turn.
It is easy to imagine one of the Medici clan, former Renaissance era powerful ruling family, strolling through these gardens.
We spent the rest of the day, including dinner, avoiding the vendors and taking in the chaos that is Florence at its touristic height. An earlish dinner at a favourite Florentine restaurant (strange that I actually have one of those now), which did not disappoint and a late night ride back to Lucca.
Arriving in the city after dark gave us a chance to see the scale of the wall with an evening glow, making for an imposing feeling especially as we walked towards them.
The parting shot for tonight is a pretty much typical Kohji pose. Good night from Lucca.
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