11/12/2009
Today we woke up at the usual time, got ready, and headed down to breakfast at 9:30. We woke up to another nice day. Two in a row and Id say we are getting pretty lucky. Anna told us that normally the weather in Tuscany is very on and off, so I guess it is our turn to experience then on weather. The plan for today was to go to Grosseto and shop around in the free open air market and then go to the seaside for lunch. Since now it is only Francesco working Villa Gaia, the breakfast spread was not what it normally was when Anna put it out, but that was ok with us.
Around 10 we got in the car and drove for about an hour to Grosseto. The open-air free market was very interesting. Not only were there, like the market in Florence, that sold leather goods, scarves, jewelry, and knick-knack items, but there were also booths that sold clothes, kitchen appliances, flowers, food, linens, and even sewing materials. It was all very interesting to walk around and see what everyone was selling. There were so many people shopping here that the market was packed. There were some food booths that were selling roasted chickens that smelled incredible and the smell permeated throughout the entire market. Since we have pretty much been shopping nonstop from the time mom got to Italy, we didn’t have anything else on our list that we were looking for, so we just cruised around the market looking and seeing what was there.
We spent about two hours at the market and then met back up with Francesco. He then drove us to the seaside town of Castigillone della Pescano. It was very interesting to see a seaside town, because when you think of Tuscany that is not what comes to mind. The water was the Tyrannian Sea, which is a part of the Mediterranean. The sea air felt nothing like how it does at home.
We ate at a restaurant that was right on the water. It had a great outdoor patio, which we ate out on. Lunch was just ok. It was our first meal with Francesco that was just ok, but that was probably our fault. We told him that seafood wasn’t our favorite (especially seafood in Europe because they serve it whole) so he didn’t take us to his favorite restaurant because it was a strictly seafood restaurant. Despite the mediocre food, the view and atmosphere was great, so everything equaled out. At lunch we learned Francesco’s entire story of how he got to be the owner of Villa Gaia, his family history, and a lot about himself, which answered a lot of questions that mom and I had been wondering about. Now that we could piece everything together that we learned about him, his family, and Villa Gaia over the week so that it all made a lot more sense.
After lunch we walked up to the top of the town, which is situated on cliffs and looked out over the water. It was a spectacular view on a beautiful day. Each town that we have visited has been different and yet similar at the same time. Francesco told us that towns used to be for entire families, which is why they are all a little different because the families ways of doing things were different, but all of the towns are a little similar too because they are in the same region. I wanted some gelato before we got back in the car but unfortunately all of the gelato places in town were closed for the winter. Apparently the town is an extremely happening place to be and have your holiday at during the summer time. They have a lot of accommodations, including campgrounds and bungalows, for people to stay in.
We got back in the car and drove back to Villa Gaia. Mom and my project for the afternoon was to get everything packed up and make sure that we were ok on weight. So when we got to Rome everything would be pretty much ready to go. After some craft packing and deliberation, we got everything in the bags and have a good plan. We should be just fine getting everything that we bought back into the States.
For dinner, Francesco is cooking for us some of his specialties. I am very excited to see what he prepares. Last night we had an interesting conversation about cooking. Roman said that because the quality and the history of the ingredients and then the climate of where you cook varies in different places all around the world, no matter if you cooked the exact same way, the food would taste different, not better or worse just different. I am very interest in seeing how using what we have learned over here will taste when we cook at home.
Tomorrow we are leaving Villa Gaia around 10 and driving to Rome, where we will spend the night before flying out on Saturday. It has been a wonderful stay at Villa Gaia and my whole European Backpacking adventure has been incredible, but Saturday will be my 55th day of traveling and I think I will be ready to go home by then and sleep in my own bed. I am looking forward to the holidays and will have to jump right into that rush when I get home. I am extremely excited to see what 2010 has in store for me.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Relaxing Day
11/11/2009
Today we woke up to the sun shining over the beautiful Tuscan countryside. This was the first time we had seen the sun since we left Florence and the clear view from Villa Gaia was incredible. It was son nice to feel the sun again. Since we had been going nonstop from the time we arrive, we had today to relax. We very much appreciated this break, in addition to that Francesco told us that it is very important in Italy to take time and relax.
We didn’t set the alarm last night so that we could sleep in. Then we took our time getting ready in the morning. We ate breakfast around 10:30 and since we did not have anything set on the agenda for the morning, I brought my computer along with me to the restaurant so I could get caught up with things on the Internet.
After breakfast, Mom and I took the two beagles, Gina and Uggo, for a walk. This was quite an experience because they are both very strong willed beagles that only wanted to follow their noses and smell everything. I have no idea how Francesco walks them both at the same time. They were everywhere, tugging very hard at their leashes, wanting to go into the woods and then down in the ravines. It was quite the task. We have known since we arrived that it is very important not to let those two out of the house without a leash on. Anna told us later on that one time Gina got loose and was gone for five days. When she came back to the house, she had broken ribs, a hole in her lung, and required a blood transfusion from the big dog, Sara. Sara also walked around with us, but since she is old and stays on the property she just mosied along side us without a leash.
We spent the rest of the morning relaxing. Mom read her book in the sun and I hung out. Anna prepared an unbelievable spaghetti lunch for us, which we ate around 1:20. It was done with a mascarpone light cream sauce and then had zucchini in it. We had the custard cake that we finished making last night for dessert. I have to say that we did a fantastic job with the custard cake and it was so easy! This was the first lunch we have eaten at Villa Gaia.
The plan for the afternoon was to go with Francesco and Anna to Grosseto and drop Anna off at the train station so that she could start her holiday to Israel. She was taking the train to Rome, spending the night in Rome with a friend, and then taking an early morning flight from Rome to Israel with a bunch of her friends. She will be gone for about 10 days and this is the first holiday away from Italy that she has gone on in about two years. Francesco is pretty excited about being separated from his mother for a while. They do spend quite a bit of time together on a regular basis between running Villa Gaia and then they live in adjoining apartments in Seggiano.
While Francesco dropped Anna off, Mom and I looked around the town center of Grosseto. We needed to buy another bag so that we could bring all of our souvenirs back to the states and still stay under the bag weight restriction limit. I did some research online and mom’s airline allows her two free bags, while mine only allows me one and if I want to bring a second one it will cost me 50 USD. To ship a 10 kilo box (which is not very heavy at all) back to the states, it would cost us 100 euro. We have some flexibility with how we want to go about packing everything up, in addition to being allowed two carry ons, and I am sure that we will figure out the best way. We ended up finding a good quality American Tourister duffle bag on wheels, which will replace a ratty brown bag that is normally used for a shoe bag. It should do the trick.
While Francesco was out, he also mailed a package for us to a friend of mine in Italy. Inter-Italian mail is relatively cheap and always gets to the destination then next day, which is not bad at all. We drove back to Villa Gaia, which was about an hour from Grosseto, and spent the rest of the afternoon and beginning of the evening relaxing some more. It was a very restful, nice day.
Francesco’s friend, Roman, stopped by the Villa yesterday to stay for a few days. Roman is French and has been traveling with his two dogs, a Dalmatian and little terrier mutt, in a conversion van for the past six months. A couple of years ago, Roman came to Villa Gaia on holiday and liked it so much that he wanted to stay for a while. So Francesco put him to work and they became good friends. Roman is very into Tibetan culture and Buddhism, which works out perfectly with the Buddhist temple so close to Villa Gaia. He is very interesting. He is on his way back to his home in France because his van (which he bought six months ago) is starting to make funny noises, and he wants to go to another Buddhist temple in Venezuela so he needs to drop the dogs off. He says that he loves coming to Tuscany because all of the people here are so nice, some of the nicest he has ever come across, and Mom and I definitely agreed with him.
At 8, Mom, Roman, and I met Francesco at the restaurant and all got in the car to go into Seggiano for a pizza dinner. WE wanted to have a pizza dinner so mom could try the Italian pizza Seggiano is the closest town to Villa Gaia. It is where Francesco and Anna live on a regular basis. There is only one pizza place and that is where we had dinner. The first thing I noticed when we sat down was the peculiar looking bread on the table. It was extremely lumpy and covered with corn meal. Turns out it was friend bread and it was unbelievably delicious. I could have eaten an entire loaf of it.
For dinner, mom and I split a pizza and salad, which was a perfect amount especially with me ravenously consuming the fantastic fried bread. The pizza that was brought to the table was not the pizza that we ordered, but that was ok. We ate it anyways and it was good. Mom and I wanted to have red wine with our dinner and since the owner of the restaurant was a friend of Francesco’s, he wanted us to try a wine that his family had made. The wine was so good and smooth and had apparently won many awards. We had three bottles of it and definitely could have had more, but Francesco said that he needed to drive home, Roman keeps everything within limits (as good Buddhists do), and Mom and I didn’t want them to think that we drink like fish, so we cut it off there. We asked the owner if his family wine is sold in the US and he said it was, so we wrote down the name of the bottle.
It was a very enjoyable day, followed by a great night full of good food, good drink, and good people.
Today we woke up to the sun shining over the beautiful Tuscan countryside. This was the first time we had seen the sun since we left Florence and the clear view from Villa Gaia was incredible. It was son nice to feel the sun again. Since we had been going nonstop from the time we arrive, we had today to relax. We very much appreciated this break, in addition to that Francesco told us that it is very important in Italy to take time and relax.
We didn’t set the alarm last night so that we could sleep in. Then we took our time getting ready in the morning. We ate breakfast around 10:30 and since we did not have anything set on the agenda for the morning, I brought my computer along with me to the restaurant so I could get caught up with things on the Internet.
After breakfast, Mom and I took the two beagles, Gina and Uggo, for a walk. This was quite an experience because they are both very strong willed beagles that only wanted to follow their noses and smell everything. I have no idea how Francesco walks them both at the same time. They were everywhere, tugging very hard at their leashes, wanting to go into the woods and then down in the ravines. It was quite the task. We have known since we arrived that it is very important not to let those two out of the house without a leash on. Anna told us later on that one time Gina got loose and was gone for five days. When she came back to the house, she had broken ribs, a hole in her lung, and required a blood transfusion from the big dog, Sara. Sara also walked around with us, but since she is old and stays on the property she just mosied along side us without a leash.
We spent the rest of the morning relaxing. Mom read her book in the sun and I hung out. Anna prepared an unbelievable spaghetti lunch for us, which we ate around 1:20. It was done with a mascarpone light cream sauce and then had zucchini in it. We had the custard cake that we finished making last night for dessert. I have to say that we did a fantastic job with the custard cake and it was so easy! This was the first lunch we have eaten at Villa Gaia.
The plan for the afternoon was to go with Francesco and Anna to Grosseto and drop Anna off at the train station so that she could start her holiday to Israel. She was taking the train to Rome, spending the night in Rome with a friend, and then taking an early morning flight from Rome to Israel with a bunch of her friends. She will be gone for about 10 days and this is the first holiday away from Italy that she has gone on in about two years. Francesco is pretty excited about being separated from his mother for a while. They do spend quite a bit of time together on a regular basis between running Villa Gaia and then they live in adjoining apartments in Seggiano.
While Francesco dropped Anna off, Mom and I looked around the town center of Grosseto. We needed to buy another bag so that we could bring all of our souvenirs back to the states and still stay under the bag weight restriction limit. I did some research online and mom’s airline allows her two free bags, while mine only allows me one and if I want to bring a second one it will cost me 50 USD. To ship a 10 kilo box (which is not very heavy at all) back to the states, it would cost us 100 euro. We have some flexibility with how we want to go about packing everything up, in addition to being allowed two carry ons, and I am sure that we will figure out the best way. We ended up finding a good quality American Tourister duffle bag on wheels, which will replace a ratty brown bag that is normally used for a shoe bag. It should do the trick.
While Francesco was out, he also mailed a package for us to a friend of mine in Italy. Inter-Italian mail is relatively cheap and always gets to the destination then next day, which is not bad at all. We drove back to Villa Gaia, which was about an hour from Grosseto, and spent the rest of the afternoon and beginning of the evening relaxing some more. It was a very restful, nice day.
Francesco’s friend, Roman, stopped by the Villa yesterday to stay for a few days. Roman is French and has been traveling with his two dogs, a Dalmatian and little terrier mutt, in a conversion van for the past six months. A couple of years ago, Roman came to Villa Gaia on holiday and liked it so much that he wanted to stay for a while. So Francesco put him to work and they became good friends. Roman is very into Tibetan culture and Buddhism, which works out perfectly with the Buddhist temple so close to Villa Gaia. He is very interesting. He is on his way back to his home in France because his van (which he bought six months ago) is starting to make funny noises, and he wants to go to another Buddhist temple in Venezuela so he needs to drop the dogs off. He says that he loves coming to Tuscany because all of the people here are so nice, some of the nicest he has ever come across, and Mom and I definitely agreed with him.
At 8, Mom, Roman, and I met Francesco at the restaurant and all got in the car to go into Seggiano for a pizza dinner. WE wanted to have a pizza dinner so mom could try the Italian pizza Seggiano is the closest town to Villa Gaia. It is where Francesco and Anna live on a regular basis. There is only one pizza place and that is where we had dinner. The first thing I noticed when we sat down was the peculiar looking bread on the table. It was extremely lumpy and covered with corn meal. Turns out it was friend bread and it was unbelievably delicious. I could have eaten an entire loaf of it.
For dinner, mom and I split a pizza and salad, which was a perfect amount especially with me ravenously consuming the fantastic fried bread. The pizza that was brought to the table was not the pizza that we ordered, but that was ok. We ate it anyways and it was good. Mom and I wanted to have red wine with our dinner and since the owner of the restaurant was a friend of Francesco’s, he wanted us to try a wine that his family had made. The wine was so good and smooth and had apparently won many awards. We had three bottles of it and definitely could have had more, but Francesco said that he needed to drive home, Roman keeps everything within limits (as good Buddhists do), and Mom and I didn’t want them to think that we drink like fish, so we cut it off there. We asked the owner if his family wine is sold in the US and he said it was, so we wrote down the name of the bottle.
It was a very enjoyable day, followed by a great night full of good food, good drink, and good people.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
11/10/2009 Recipes
11/10/2009
Base of the Multi-Purpose Cake
- 8 eggs separated, 300g flour, 300g sugar, 1 lemon of zest (optional), vanilla (optional), 1 tsp yeast
- Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until fluffy
- Beat the egg yolks
- Add vanilla (which was in the powder form) and years to the flour and sift into beaten egg yolks, beat slowly, add lemon zest
- Slowly and gently incorporate the fluffy egg whites into the batter
- Put parchment paper over cake pan and pour batter into, evening out throughout the pan
- Bake at 160 degree C, finished when fluffy, turn oven off and wait 5 minutes to take out
Ice Cream Cake
- (Way before) Boil water and sugar to make a very liquidy sweet syrup
- Cut the top of the multi-purpose cake off, so that you have a 1cm thick layer and place in the bottom of a cake pan, making a crust around the edges
- Pour “syrup” over cake layer to make moist
- Spread ice cream over moist cake to make another layer, make the ice cream layer thick
o Anna had made this ice cream earlier in the day, but it would just be easiest for us to buy it at the stores even though Ana’s was incredible
- Cut another 1cm layer off the multi-purpose cake and place on top of ice cream layer
- Moisten cake with syrup again
- Add another thick layer of ice cream and smooth out to make pretty
- Place back in freezer
Custard Cake
- Take a layer from the multi-purpose cake and moisten with syrup
- To make the custard
o 3 egg yolks, 60g flour, a bit less than 180g sugar (depending on how sweet you want the custard to be), a piece of vanilla bean, 1/3 liter of milk
o Combine yolks and sugar fist, gradually add flour and then milk, and add vanilla bean (cut open so that you can get paste out)
o Mix in an aluminum bowl (which you can also put on the stove)
o Boil, stirring constantly until thick
o Take off heat and stir more, let cool
- Spread a custard layer over the first layer of moistened cake, add a 2nd layer of moistened cake, spread rest of custard over the top and sides of the cake
- Decorate as you will
Pork
- Chop up rosemary, sage, and garlic all together, add 2 tbs of butter at room temperature, salt and pepper, and combine to make a paste
- Take a pork tenderloin and tie up with a string and butterfly knots
- Take a knife and bore large holes into the tenderloin, filling each hole with the butter/herb paste
- Sauté the tenderloin in a pan with EVOO and garlic cloves, add a bit of salt
o Make sure not to poke anymore holes in the tenderloin
o Brown on all sides
- Add water to the pan and cover
- Turn down heat after a minute
- After a period add more water for gravy
Potatoes Done Two Ways
- Peel potatoes and soak in water
- Cut potatoes into chunks and distribute throughout two pans
- Way #1
o Dice up one small tomato and a half of an onion and add to pan
o Add a little water, drizzle EVOO
o Sprinkle oregano and salt and pepper over potatoes
- Way #2
o Slice up cloves of garlic and add to pan with rosemary
o Add a little water, drizzle EVOO
o Salt and Pepper
- Bake both pans full of potatoes in the oven
Pici Pasta
- Sauce
o The base of the sauce is EVOO, tomato paste, salt, and water, which is boiled and then cooled
o Press garlic cloves into the cooled sauce (1 clove/person) add salt
o Boil
o Add more water after a period of time
o Right before serving, heat sauce back up, add one more pressed clove of garlic
- Homemade Pasta
o 1 kilo of 00 flour, 300g warm water (a little more water in the summer time), 1 Tbs EVOO, salt
o Mix together using the circular technique with a fork
• Want the dough to be soft, dry, and elastic (same texture as pizza)
o Let relax for 30 minutes in a bun shape
o Cut slices and snake roll into long “snakes”
• It is better to mix up pici in multiple small quantities if making for a large group of people
• Pici must be cooked right after it is prepared
o Drop it carefully in the water to make sure the pieces are not stuck together
Base of the Multi-Purpose Cake
- 8 eggs separated, 300g flour, 300g sugar, 1 lemon of zest (optional), vanilla (optional), 1 tsp yeast
- Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until fluffy
- Beat the egg yolks
- Add vanilla (which was in the powder form) and years to the flour and sift into beaten egg yolks, beat slowly, add lemon zest
- Slowly and gently incorporate the fluffy egg whites into the batter
- Put parchment paper over cake pan and pour batter into, evening out throughout the pan
- Bake at 160 degree C, finished when fluffy, turn oven off and wait 5 minutes to take out
Ice Cream Cake
- (Way before) Boil water and sugar to make a very liquidy sweet syrup
- Cut the top of the multi-purpose cake off, so that you have a 1cm thick layer and place in the bottom of a cake pan, making a crust around the edges
- Pour “syrup” over cake layer to make moist
- Spread ice cream over moist cake to make another layer, make the ice cream layer thick
o Anna had made this ice cream earlier in the day, but it would just be easiest for us to buy it at the stores even though Ana’s was incredible
- Cut another 1cm layer off the multi-purpose cake and place on top of ice cream layer
- Moisten cake with syrup again
- Add another thick layer of ice cream and smooth out to make pretty
- Place back in freezer
Custard Cake
- Take a layer from the multi-purpose cake and moisten with syrup
- To make the custard
o 3 egg yolks, 60g flour, a bit less than 180g sugar (depending on how sweet you want the custard to be), a piece of vanilla bean, 1/3 liter of milk
o Combine yolks and sugar fist, gradually add flour and then milk, and add vanilla bean (cut open so that you can get paste out)
o Mix in an aluminum bowl (which you can also put on the stove)
o Boil, stirring constantly until thick
o Take off heat and stir more, let cool
- Spread a custard layer over the first layer of moistened cake, add a 2nd layer of moistened cake, spread rest of custard over the top and sides of the cake
- Decorate as you will
Pork
- Chop up rosemary, sage, and garlic all together, add 2 tbs of butter at room temperature, salt and pepper, and combine to make a paste
- Take a pork tenderloin and tie up with a string and butterfly knots
- Take a knife and bore large holes into the tenderloin, filling each hole with the butter/herb paste
- Sauté the tenderloin in a pan with EVOO and garlic cloves, add a bit of salt
o Make sure not to poke anymore holes in the tenderloin
o Brown on all sides
- Add water to the pan and cover
- Turn down heat after a minute
- After a period add more water for gravy
Potatoes Done Two Ways
- Peel potatoes and soak in water
- Cut potatoes into chunks and distribute throughout two pans
- Way #1
o Dice up one small tomato and a half of an onion and add to pan
o Add a little water, drizzle EVOO
o Sprinkle oregano and salt and pepper over potatoes
- Way #2
o Slice up cloves of garlic and add to pan with rosemary
o Add a little water, drizzle EVOO
o Salt and Pepper
- Bake both pans full of potatoes in the oven
Pici Pasta
- Sauce
o The base of the sauce is EVOO, tomato paste, salt, and water, which is boiled and then cooled
o Press garlic cloves into the cooled sauce (1 clove/person) add salt
o Boil
o Add more water after a period of time
o Right before serving, heat sauce back up, add one more pressed clove of garlic
- Homemade Pasta
o 1 kilo of 00 flour, 300g warm water (a little more water in the summer time), 1 Tbs EVOO, salt
o Mix together using the circular technique with a fork
• Want the dough to be soft, dry, and elastic (same texture as pizza)
o Let relax for 30 minutes in a bun shape
o Cut slices and snake roll into long “snakes”
• It is better to mix up pici in multiple small quantities if making for a large group of people
• Pici must be cooked right after it is prepared
o Drop it carefully in the water to make sure the pieces are not stuck together
A day of wine tasting
11/10/2009
Today we had plans to see some more Tuscan towns and so some wine tasting in them. We work up and did our usual morning routine of getting ready and having breakfast at the restaurant. Come to find out, Francesco’s mom is not named Isabella, her name is Anna. Isabella is the head lady of the Tuscan Way and organizes multiple villas’ that are involved in the program. Mom kept calling her Anna and I thought she was just losing it, but I was looking at some papers and realized that she was right all along. Despite how dumb I felt after making this realization, I am really glad that I officially never addressed her by her name.
Anna really impresses me. She made us the equivalent of chestnut nutella, using chestnuts that she had found inn the forest around the villa. I think it is so cool how everything she cooks and serves from ice cream to pasta is homemade. She says that she thinks the best restaurant is her own kitchen. Last night she showed us the menus from the weddings that were at Villa Gaia this past summer, and whoa talk about a lot of work. It all sounded amazing. The largest number of people she has ever cooked for at once is 150.
Francesco arrived at the restaurant to pick us up, and head out for the day. Our first stop was the town of Montelpulciano, but before we got there we had a couple of mini stops, saw a lot of neat things, and learned many interesting facts. As we were driving we saw some people picking olives. The way they do this is by spreading out a large net underneath the olive tree. Then they pick the olives by hand and drop them down into the net. From the net, the olives go directly to a box and then directly to the olive oil making machine for first press. As soon as the olives are off the tree they start ripening and do so fairly quickly, so it is important to also be quick with getting them to the pressing machine. The olives are ready to be picked when they are a violet color with a little bit of green in them. Later on in the day, we did see some people picking olives by using a machine to shake the branches. This would probably be faster to do it this way, but I don’t know if you would damage the olives like that.
Some fun facts that we learned in the car ride are the following..
At one point, we were driving along the crest of a mountain. If you looked down one side of the mountain it was very green, and if you looked down the other side it was brown. The green side was Montalcino and the brown side was Chianti. It was neat to see how two different types of grapes could so drastically affect the look of the land and be so close together. We will be doing our wine tasting on the Montecino side, but maybe we could work a Chianti wine tasting in if we have some extra time.
I knew that the choices of places you could eat in Italy went from a bar, to a trattoria, to a ristorante, and each one was more expensive than the last. We kept eating and passing places that were osteria’s. Turns out an osteria is similar to a trattoria but when you eat there you know a family is doing the cooking and you are eating food typical from the region, which is prepared with fresh local ingredients. In the old days, at both a trattoria and an osteria, when you stopped there for dinner you could also spend the night there. A cool concept of figuring out what type of restaurant you would like to go to and what you will get in return
Truffles are harvested twice a year, once around October and once around April. Black truffles are native to Tuscany and white truffles are grown up neat Torino. Now a days they are harvested with dogs. It takes three years to train a dog to find truffles and you absolutely need them in order to find the truffle. The truffle is located about 20cm deep in the ground. The dog sniffs if out and then the farmer comes over and hand digs the truffle out. Truffles are so expensive because of the time it takes to train the dog and hand dig the truffle out. You can use a machine to dig them out because they are too delicate and deep and it would crush the truffle. Truffles could really be all over Tuscany, but you would never know because you don’t have dogs sniffing all over Tuscany.
Every time we go into a new town, Francesco points out the color of stone that all of the buildings are build with and tells us that this is the native stone to this town. If one were to build a new building in the town they would need to do so by using the native stone. They would go to the stone store and buy a huge chunk of the native stone from there. Then they would go home and hand cut the huge chunk of stone to hand build their new building. Talk about a lot of work, but “it is the way it must be” says Francesco.
A lot of times we ask Francesco and Anna questions and our questions get ignored because they have no idea what we just said. So we just ask the question again a couple of minutes later and normally it gets answered then. It works out.
The first mini stop was the town of Bagno Vignoni. It is famous because it is over hot mineral springs. The town uses the hot water to have a naturally heated swimming pool in the town center and also has a couple of water mills. Francesco told us that the other night he was a party at a bar in Bagno Vignoni. After he left the bar, he sat with his feet in the how water spring for an hour, just relaxing. How nice! The town also has a couple of spas in it that people come to from all over, year after year, to heal from the mineral water.
The second mini stop was at a ceramic factory. This place was unbelievable. It had huge ceramic statues, tables, pots, plates, pretty much anything you could ever want of beautiful Italian ceramics. Patricia told me that the style of painting ceramics differs from the region. I think it would be so cool to do a giant trip all around Italy and pick up a tile and place setting from each region so that they all had different styles of painting on them. I got a picture next to one of the ceramic statues. The lady is plump and curvy, which is exactly what I am gong to look like when I leave Italy! All of the ceramics are made to be kept outside and do just fine in the elements.
So we finally made it Montepulciano. This town is famous for its wine. It also is a town that to walk around in it, you are always walking up hill. Francesco gave us an hour to walk around and explore the town. He pointed out a very cool bar (café) and leather store. We got a hot chocolate in the bar that was very similar to the hot chocolate that I got in Venice. It was extremely thick dark chocolate, which just seemed to be melted, that you ate it with a spoon. It was rich and wonderful. The leather store was a factory store. We did some more shopping! Haha we just cant help ourselves because we know the quality is good and we keep finding exactly what we are looking for. It is a famous leather brand, and since it was the factory store you really can beat the prices. Even with the Euro being expensive, you cant find prices like these for these products in the States!
Then we met up with Francesco to take a tour of the “old city’ and to do a wine tasting. To start the tour of the old city, we walked into a wine store and down a stone stair well, which seemed to lead into a basement. There were many rooms and staircases below the store that housed many wine barrels. Now the store uses the rooms for storing the wine it makes because it is the perfect atmosphere (dark and 13 degrees C) but the rooms used to be an underground city. Francesco also explained how the wine making process with the wooden barrels, which was cool to see how it was done in the old days and now. For the wine tasting we tasted montepulciano wine (obviously), but the wine we liked best was the nobile montepulciano. It had stayed in the wood for a bit longer.
Our next stop was the Town of Piensa. Piensa is famous for two things, pecorino cheese and a pope lived there. It is the only other place in Italy that can fly the flags of the Vatican other than the Vatican. We went inside the Pope’s church, but it really wasn’t the most impressive church we have seen so far. What a claim to fame though! We ate lunch in Piensa. The original plan for lunch was to just try a bunch of different cheese and meats special to Piensa, but Francesco’s favorite place that did this was closed, so we ate at the next best thing. We still ordered a meat and cheese platter for our first course that served three different kinds of pecorino (aged young, medium, and old) with four different kinds of marmalade (onion (my favorite), strawberry/balsamic (my second favorite), a fig/orange, and an orange). I really love the combination of cheese and honey and marmalade. Mom and I also split a vegetable soup and wild boar soup at lunch and by the end I was so full, I thought I was going to explode. The wild boar stew had an unbelievable gravy with it, which Francesco said the key to making it was marinating the wild boar in wine and then making the gravy with tomatoes. We also had wine with lunch too, even after the wine tasting in Montepulciano and so when I got back in the car to go to the next town, I had to take a little nap on the way. The last thing that Piensa is famous for is the picture of Tuscany that is on Windows PC is taken from a look out point in Piensa.
Next we went to a wine production site in Montalcino. Francesco said that the town of Montalcino was nothing special, so he always prefers to just go directly to what makes it famous, the wine. We did another wine tasting here of Rosso and Brunello wines, but nothing really knocked out socks off. The one we liked best was the riserva (because it is the nicest) but it wasn’t anything magnificent and was very expensive. We were also very tired at this point in the day and ready to get back to the villa. On the way back, we stopped briefly at an abbey that was from the last millennium. It was cool that it was so old, but by far the least impressive church we had seen. When we walked in, the man working the desk was humming and we felt like we were almost imposing on his quiet time.
We got back to the villa and had about an hour and a half before we had to be down at the restaurant for our last official cooking course with Anna. She is going to Israel tomorrow on holiday with her girlfriends. Mom and I both took much needed naps in order to have enough energy to get through the night. Tonight’s cooking course, was by far the easier, but nonetheless just as delicious as the rest. We had been meaning to take pictures of all of the dishes that we prepared, but tonight was the first night that we actually remembered. I have a whole list of pictures that I wished I had taken, oh well. Some of Francesco’s friends joined us, which was great because it meant that all of the food we made got served and we didn’t have to stuff ourselves. The friends were very nice. One spoke great English and worked at a spa/resort in Bagno Vignoni. The other one was very excited to meet us and wanted to know exactly where we lived and what type of city Norfolk was. When I was able to show her a picture of our how, she got very excited. Mom told her that she liked her scarf and she gave it to mom, because “that is the Italian way”! We all had a very nice time at dinner and got in a lot of pictures. Gina, the beagle, was being very naughty tonight and kept trying to pick fights with her brother, Uggo. She is the boss, even though she is the littlest, and lets everybody know it. Tomorrow, we have the morning off, so it will be very nice to sleep in and take out time in the morning. As with everyday at Villa Gaia, today was a great day!
Today we had plans to see some more Tuscan towns and so some wine tasting in them. We work up and did our usual morning routine of getting ready and having breakfast at the restaurant. Come to find out, Francesco’s mom is not named Isabella, her name is Anna. Isabella is the head lady of the Tuscan Way and organizes multiple villas’ that are involved in the program. Mom kept calling her Anna and I thought she was just losing it, but I was looking at some papers and realized that she was right all along. Despite how dumb I felt after making this realization, I am really glad that I officially never addressed her by her name.
Anna really impresses me. She made us the equivalent of chestnut nutella, using chestnuts that she had found inn the forest around the villa. I think it is so cool how everything she cooks and serves from ice cream to pasta is homemade. She says that she thinks the best restaurant is her own kitchen. Last night she showed us the menus from the weddings that were at Villa Gaia this past summer, and whoa talk about a lot of work. It all sounded amazing. The largest number of people she has ever cooked for at once is 150.
Francesco arrived at the restaurant to pick us up, and head out for the day. Our first stop was the town of Montelpulciano, but before we got there we had a couple of mini stops, saw a lot of neat things, and learned many interesting facts. As we were driving we saw some people picking olives. The way they do this is by spreading out a large net underneath the olive tree. Then they pick the olives by hand and drop them down into the net. From the net, the olives go directly to a box and then directly to the olive oil making machine for first press. As soon as the olives are off the tree they start ripening and do so fairly quickly, so it is important to also be quick with getting them to the pressing machine. The olives are ready to be picked when they are a violet color with a little bit of green in them. Later on in the day, we did see some people picking olives by using a machine to shake the branches. This would probably be faster to do it this way, but I don’t know if you would damage the olives like that.
Some fun facts that we learned in the car ride are the following..
At one point, we were driving along the crest of a mountain. If you looked down one side of the mountain it was very green, and if you looked down the other side it was brown. The green side was Montalcino and the brown side was Chianti. It was neat to see how two different types of grapes could so drastically affect the look of the land and be so close together. We will be doing our wine tasting on the Montecino side, but maybe we could work a Chianti wine tasting in if we have some extra time.
I knew that the choices of places you could eat in Italy went from a bar, to a trattoria, to a ristorante, and each one was more expensive than the last. We kept eating and passing places that were osteria’s. Turns out an osteria is similar to a trattoria but when you eat there you know a family is doing the cooking and you are eating food typical from the region, which is prepared with fresh local ingredients. In the old days, at both a trattoria and an osteria, when you stopped there for dinner you could also spend the night there. A cool concept of figuring out what type of restaurant you would like to go to and what you will get in return
Truffles are harvested twice a year, once around October and once around April. Black truffles are native to Tuscany and white truffles are grown up neat Torino. Now a days they are harvested with dogs. It takes three years to train a dog to find truffles and you absolutely need them in order to find the truffle. The truffle is located about 20cm deep in the ground. The dog sniffs if out and then the farmer comes over and hand digs the truffle out. Truffles are so expensive because of the time it takes to train the dog and hand dig the truffle out. You can use a machine to dig them out because they are too delicate and deep and it would crush the truffle. Truffles could really be all over Tuscany, but you would never know because you don’t have dogs sniffing all over Tuscany.
Every time we go into a new town, Francesco points out the color of stone that all of the buildings are build with and tells us that this is the native stone to this town. If one were to build a new building in the town they would need to do so by using the native stone. They would go to the stone store and buy a huge chunk of the native stone from there. Then they would go home and hand cut the huge chunk of stone to hand build their new building. Talk about a lot of work, but “it is the way it must be” says Francesco.
A lot of times we ask Francesco and Anna questions and our questions get ignored because they have no idea what we just said. So we just ask the question again a couple of minutes later and normally it gets answered then. It works out.
The first mini stop was the town of Bagno Vignoni. It is famous because it is over hot mineral springs. The town uses the hot water to have a naturally heated swimming pool in the town center and also has a couple of water mills. Francesco told us that the other night he was a party at a bar in Bagno Vignoni. After he left the bar, he sat with his feet in the how water spring for an hour, just relaxing. How nice! The town also has a couple of spas in it that people come to from all over, year after year, to heal from the mineral water.
The second mini stop was at a ceramic factory. This place was unbelievable. It had huge ceramic statues, tables, pots, plates, pretty much anything you could ever want of beautiful Italian ceramics. Patricia told me that the style of painting ceramics differs from the region. I think it would be so cool to do a giant trip all around Italy and pick up a tile and place setting from each region so that they all had different styles of painting on them. I got a picture next to one of the ceramic statues. The lady is plump and curvy, which is exactly what I am gong to look like when I leave Italy! All of the ceramics are made to be kept outside and do just fine in the elements.
So we finally made it Montepulciano. This town is famous for its wine. It also is a town that to walk around in it, you are always walking up hill. Francesco gave us an hour to walk around and explore the town. He pointed out a very cool bar (café) and leather store. We got a hot chocolate in the bar that was very similar to the hot chocolate that I got in Venice. It was extremely thick dark chocolate, which just seemed to be melted, that you ate it with a spoon. It was rich and wonderful. The leather store was a factory store. We did some more shopping! Haha we just cant help ourselves because we know the quality is good and we keep finding exactly what we are looking for. It is a famous leather brand, and since it was the factory store you really can beat the prices. Even with the Euro being expensive, you cant find prices like these for these products in the States!
Then we met up with Francesco to take a tour of the “old city’ and to do a wine tasting. To start the tour of the old city, we walked into a wine store and down a stone stair well, which seemed to lead into a basement. There were many rooms and staircases below the store that housed many wine barrels. Now the store uses the rooms for storing the wine it makes because it is the perfect atmosphere (dark and 13 degrees C) but the rooms used to be an underground city. Francesco also explained how the wine making process with the wooden barrels, which was cool to see how it was done in the old days and now. For the wine tasting we tasted montepulciano wine (obviously), but the wine we liked best was the nobile montepulciano. It had stayed in the wood for a bit longer.
Our next stop was the Town of Piensa. Piensa is famous for two things, pecorino cheese and a pope lived there. It is the only other place in Italy that can fly the flags of the Vatican other than the Vatican. We went inside the Pope’s church, but it really wasn’t the most impressive church we have seen so far. What a claim to fame though! We ate lunch in Piensa. The original plan for lunch was to just try a bunch of different cheese and meats special to Piensa, but Francesco’s favorite place that did this was closed, so we ate at the next best thing. We still ordered a meat and cheese platter for our first course that served three different kinds of pecorino (aged young, medium, and old) with four different kinds of marmalade (onion (my favorite), strawberry/balsamic (my second favorite), a fig/orange, and an orange). I really love the combination of cheese and honey and marmalade. Mom and I also split a vegetable soup and wild boar soup at lunch and by the end I was so full, I thought I was going to explode. The wild boar stew had an unbelievable gravy with it, which Francesco said the key to making it was marinating the wild boar in wine and then making the gravy with tomatoes. We also had wine with lunch too, even after the wine tasting in Montepulciano and so when I got back in the car to go to the next town, I had to take a little nap on the way. The last thing that Piensa is famous for is the picture of Tuscany that is on Windows PC is taken from a look out point in Piensa.
Next we went to a wine production site in Montalcino. Francesco said that the town of Montalcino was nothing special, so he always prefers to just go directly to what makes it famous, the wine. We did another wine tasting here of Rosso and Brunello wines, but nothing really knocked out socks off. The one we liked best was the riserva (because it is the nicest) but it wasn’t anything magnificent and was very expensive. We were also very tired at this point in the day and ready to get back to the villa. On the way back, we stopped briefly at an abbey that was from the last millennium. It was cool that it was so old, but by far the least impressive church we had seen. When we walked in, the man working the desk was humming and we felt like we were almost imposing on his quiet time.
We got back to the villa and had about an hour and a half before we had to be down at the restaurant for our last official cooking course with Anna. She is going to Israel tomorrow on holiday with her girlfriends. Mom and I both took much needed naps in order to have enough energy to get through the night. Tonight’s cooking course, was by far the easier, but nonetheless just as delicious as the rest. We had been meaning to take pictures of all of the dishes that we prepared, but tonight was the first night that we actually remembered. I have a whole list of pictures that I wished I had taken, oh well. Some of Francesco’s friends joined us, which was great because it meant that all of the food we made got served and we didn’t have to stuff ourselves. The friends were very nice. One spoke great English and worked at a spa/resort in Bagno Vignoni. The other one was very excited to meet us and wanted to know exactly where we lived and what type of city Norfolk was. When I was able to show her a picture of our how, she got very excited. Mom told her that she liked her scarf and she gave it to mom, because “that is the Italian way”! We all had a very nice time at dinner and got in a lot of pictures. Gina, the beagle, was being very naughty tonight and kept trying to pick fights with her brother, Uggo. She is the boss, even though she is the littlest, and lets everybody know it. Tomorrow, we have the morning off, so it will be very nice to sleep in and take out time in the morning. As with everyday at Villa Gaia, today was a great day!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
11/9/2009 Recipes
11/09/2009 Recipes
Marmalade Tart Cake
- 4 egg yolks, 400g sift flour, 200g sugar, 200g butter at room temperature, 1 lemon of zest, 1 tsp yeast, a pinch of salt
- Mix together in a circular fashion (with egg yolks in the middle) with a fork, gently and then harder
o Not looking for elasticity, just combining everything together like cookie dough
- Let relax in a bun
- Cover the pan cake with parchment paper
- Use half of the bun, cut into slices and pat the slices into the bottom of the pan
o Make the base of the pan thinner than the sides, which form into a crust
o Pour marmalade mixture over dough into the pan
• Marmalade mixture is marmalade with water mixed together very well (or pureed) so that it is liquid
- Use a portion of the other half of the bun to form a lattice to go over marmalade
o Roll slices out like a snake
o Design the edges with a fork
o Press lattice intersection with a knife in a v shape for design and attachment
- Can use the rest of the bun to make little cookies, which can be cooked separately or put in the middle of the lattice squares
Chick Pea Soup
- Set in water for 2 hours 200g of dried chickpeas to allow to expand
- Boil for 1 hour (so 3 hours total)
- Tie together with a string a bunch of springs of rosemary
o So can get the rosemary flavor without having the leaves in the soup
- In EVOO, sauté rosemary and 2 garlic cloves
o But only for a minute
- Add 1 ladle of chick peas to oil to sauté
o Puree the rest of the chick peas and add them to the sauté pan
- Add more water for soupy consistency
- Leave on heat and cover
o Add more water (from chick pea juice) as time goes on
o Add a large vegetable bullion cube
- Top with EVOO for decoration before serving
Stuffed Peppers
- Sauté two whole red and yellow peppers in EVOO, let cool then clean seeds out and cut into long strips
o Lay peppers out (skin side down) and sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Cut up 1 eggplant into pieces (without seeds) and sauté in EVOO with 4 cloves of garlic, once cooked let cool and add salt
o Chop up some parsley (without stems, which you can do with scissors) and add to eggplant
- Wash capers, olives (green and black) from jars to get all of the brine off of them (wash 2-3 times)
o Depit olives and add with capers to oil used for eggplants and sauté
o Add a diced tomato to mixture
o Once cooked, take off fire and add the number of peppers of spoonfuls of breadcrumbs to sauté pan.
- Combine eggplant/parsley mixture and caper/olives/tomato/breadcrumb mixture in a bowl and mix in 1 egg
- Roll final combined mixture up in peppers
- Roll pepper rolls in breadcrumbs
- Bake in an EVOO pan in the oven (sprinkle EVOO on top of peppers too)
Chicken
- Filet chicken breasts, pound thin (with parchment paper over breasts)
- Sprinkle salt, pepper, and shaved parmesan over breasts
- Add a piece of ham on top of each filet, then roll up and pin with a toothpick
- Cover each of the rolls in EVOO
- Saute the rolls in a pan with EVOO and garlic cloves
- When chicken rolls are mostly cooked, grate some carrots over them, add salt and milk and let boil
- Take off heat and add fontina cheese to pan, mix together and cover
Marmalade Tart Cake
- 4 egg yolks, 400g sift flour, 200g sugar, 200g butter at room temperature, 1 lemon of zest, 1 tsp yeast, a pinch of salt
- Mix together in a circular fashion (with egg yolks in the middle) with a fork, gently and then harder
o Not looking for elasticity, just combining everything together like cookie dough
- Let relax in a bun
- Cover the pan cake with parchment paper
- Use half of the bun, cut into slices and pat the slices into the bottom of the pan
o Make the base of the pan thinner than the sides, which form into a crust
o Pour marmalade mixture over dough into the pan
• Marmalade mixture is marmalade with water mixed together very well (or pureed) so that it is liquid
- Use a portion of the other half of the bun to form a lattice to go over marmalade
o Roll slices out like a snake
o Design the edges with a fork
o Press lattice intersection with a knife in a v shape for design and attachment
- Can use the rest of the bun to make little cookies, which can be cooked separately or put in the middle of the lattice squares
Chick Pea Soup
- Set in water for 2 hours 200g of dried chickpeas to allow to expand
- Boil for 1 hour (so 3 hours total)
- Tie together with a string a bunch of springs of rosemary
o So can get the rosemary flavor without having the leaves in the soup
- In EVOO, sauté rosemary and 2 garlic cloves
o But only for a minute
- Add 1 ladle of chick peas to oil to sauté
o Puree the rest of the chick peas and add them to the sauté pan
- Add more water for soupy consistency
- Leave on heat and cover
o Add more water (from chick pea juice) as time goes on
o Add a large vegetable bullion cube
- Top with EVOO for decoration before serving
Stuffed Peppers
- Sauté two whole red and yellow peppers in EVOO, let cool then clean seeds out and cut into long strips
o Lay peppers out (skin side down) and sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Cut up 1 eggplant into pieces (without seeds) and sauté in EVOO with 4 cloves of garlic, once cooked let cool and add salt
o Chop up some parsley (without stems, which you can do with scissors) and add to eggplant
- Wash capers, olives (green and black) from jars to get all of the brine off of them (wash 2-3 times)
o Depit olives and add with capers to oil used for eggplants and sauté
o Add a diced tomato to mixture
o Once cooked, take off fire and add the number of peppers of spoonfuls of breadcrumbs to sauté pan.
- Combine eggplant/parsley mixture and caper/olives/tomato/breadcrumb mixture in a bowl and mix in 1 egg
- Roll final combined mixture up in peppers
- Roll pepper rolls in breadcrumbs
- Bake in an EVOO pan in the oven (sprinkle EVOO on top of peppers too)
Chicken
- Filet chicken breasts, pound thin (with parchment paper over breasts)
- Sprinkle salt, pepper, and shaved parmesan over breasts
- Add a piece of ham on top of each filet, then roll up and pin with a toothpick
- Cover each of the rolls in EVOO
- Saute the rolls in a pan with EVOO and garlic cloves
- When chicken rolls are mostly cooked, grate some carrots over them, add salt and milk and let boil
- Take off heat and add fontina cheese to pan, mix together and cover
Sienaaaa
11/9/2009
Today we went to Siena for the day. Siena is another fantastic Tuscan town, which is a bit bigger than the previous three that we visited, and as a result has a lot more going on in it as for restaurants, shopping, and people. We woke up earlier so that we could be on the road by 10. Siena is about an hour and some change drive from the villa in the direction of Florence. Breakfast at the villa was once again an incredible spread of very fresh fruit. I really enjoy eating yogurt, cornflakes, and a bit of jam as a well-balanced breakfast. Mom and I seriously lucked out coming this week and having the villa all to ourselves. Francesco told us that last week the villa was complexly booked and full. The weather today was cloudy skies, but Francesco said that tomorrow’s forecast looked clear. Apparently the weather in November in Tuscany is very random with one day nice and the next gross and always alternating.
Francesco is pretty amazing. After growing up in Naples, he went to school to be a lawyer, but at the age of 23 he realized that he did not want to pursue that profession and bought Villa Gaia. For the past ten years, he and his mom (and sometimes his brother is “he is not being lazy, which is rare”) worked on fixing the place up. Now they do a wonderful business. In addition to the regular guests, restaurant, and olive grove, Villa Gaia also hosts artist exhibitions and weddings, which of course are catered by the Villa. They work extremely hard and it shows, but definitely pays off. Francesco is about to go on a three-week vacation all over the east. He really lives a fantastic life because he works with what he loves. He told mom the other day that he wished he had gone to culinary school instead of studying law. He isn’t and doesn’t want to get married so he just has his mother, the villa, and his three dogs to worry about.
Once we got to Siena, Mom and I had about 2 hours of free time to walk around and take in the city. We strolled along the streets looking in store windows and popping into a few to see what they had to offer. We found ourselves by a bus station and figured we better turn around so that we could meet Francesco in time for lunch. We got some ideas of things we would like to buy, but decided to save our shopping for after lunch. We were supposed to meet Francesco at 1, but arrived at the meeting place early and decided to call dad before he went to work.
Siena is a very cool, very old town. It has a famous horse race throughout the town a couple of times a year. The history or all of the old Tuscan towns and their families is incredibly long and interesting. It is amazing that many of the building have been standing since before Christ. In addition to that, Siena is located on a hill so that it offers a great view.
Francesco took us to an unbelievable restaurant for lunch. It was unlike any building I had ever been in. Francesco said the interior was very similar to the way the houses were in the three towns that we visited yesterday. The entire interior of the restaurant was built into the rocks, giving each room a very rustic cave like appearance. It was extremely cool. In addition to that, lunch was a seriously delicious fine dining experience. Per usual, Mom and I split an appetizer of a porcini mushroom tart that was garnished with blueberries and walnuts, a very thin parmesan bowl filled with gnocchi covered in a pumpkin sauce, and then pork rolls that were stuffed with ricotta cheese, spinach, and sausage smothered in a truffle sauce and served with a potato cake. We literally thought we had died and gone to heaven. Everything was perfect. Mom has also been on a kick of trying white wines, because there are actually some over here that she enjoys the taste of, so we had two glasses of a very crisp fresh white wine of the region that had a serious pear flavor to it.
After lunch we went to see the duomo of Siena. It was an absolutely beautiful church. We admired all of the intricate details for a while. There was a painting by Rafael in there, which was cool to see, even though I don’t take much stock in religious artwork. There was a very cool bookstore tent beside the duomo. It was cool because it was a clear tent and had some great classical music blasting from it. Mom looked for a while for a nice coffee table book about Tuscany, but I couldn’t last long in the tent because I was roasting from the sunlight. By the afternoon, the clouds had clear and the sun with blue skies came out. Mom didn’t end up finding a coffee table book, so we have on our list to keep our eyes peeled for that item.
As we walked to the edge of the city, we stopped in many ceramic shops. We were looking for some reasonably priced wine holders and Christmas ornaments that said Tuscany on them. Eventually we lucked out and found a deal. We looked in a could more boutiques on the way out too and made some purchases, which are to be kept confidential. Since we didn’t have dessert at lunch (Note: We are in Italy to eat and not to diet. 2010 will be for serious dieting, but until then I will enjoy every bite) and since Mom had not had gelato in Italy yet, we stopped in a Gelateria and got Mom her first. She has strawberry and I had black cherry, and both were incredibly tasty.
On the way home, with the skies cleared, there was a beautiful sunset. We got back to the villa around 5:30 and had to be at the restaurant at 6 for our third cooking course. It was another great night of cooking delicious and nutritious food and enjoying good wine and company. The beagles were being especially playful tonight and it was entertaining to watch. A major priority of ours now is to figure out how we are going to get all of our purchases back to the US. I did a bit a research on possible methods and it looks like we have some options, which takes some stress off our shoulders. But lets be realistic, how stressed can you be shopping, cooking, eating, and drinking your way through Tuscany?
Today we went to Siena for the day. Siena is another fantastic Tuscan town, which is a bit bigger than the previous three that we visited, and as a result has a lot more going on in it as for restaurants, shopping, and people. We woke up earlier so that we could be on the road by 10. Siena is about an hour and some change drive from the villa in the direction of Florence. Breakfast at the villa was once again an incredible spread of very fresh fruit. I really enjoy eating yogurt, cornflakes, and a bit of jam as a well-balanced breakfast. Mom and I seriously lucked out coming this week and having the villa all to ourselves. Francesco told us that last week the villa was complexly booked and full. The weather today was cloudy skies, but Francesco said that tomorrow’s forecast looked clear. Apparently the weather in November in Tuscany is very random with one day nice and the next gross and always alternating.
Francesco is pretty amazing. After growing up in Naples, he went to school to be a lawyer, but at the age of 23 he realized that he did not want to pursue that profession and bought Villa Gaia. For the past ten years, he and his mom (and sometimes his brother is “he is not being lazy, which is rare”) worked on fixing the place up. Now they do a wonderful business. In addition to the regular guests, restaurant, and olive grove, Villa Gaia also hosts artist exhibitions and weddings, which of course are catered by the Villa. They work extremely hard and it shows, but definitely pays off. Francesco is about to go on a three-week vacation all over the east. He really lives a fantastic life because he works with what he loves. He told mom the other day that he wished he had gone to culinary school instead of studying law. He isn’t and doesn’t want to get married so he just has his mother, the villa, and his three dogs to worry about.
Once we got to Siena, Mom and I had about 2 hours of free time to walk around and take in the city. We strolled along the streets looking in store windows and popping into a few to see what they had to offer. We found ourselves by a bus station and figured we better turn around so that we could meet Francesco in time for lunch. We got some ideas of things we would like to buy, but decided to save our shopping for after lunch. We were supposed to meet Francesco at 1, but arrived at the meeting place early and decided to call dad before he went to work.
Siena is a very cool, very old town. It has a famous horse race throughout the town a couple of times a year. The history or all of the old Tuscan towns and their families is incredibly long and interesting. It is amazing that many of the building have been standing since before Christ. In addition to that, Siena is located on a hill so that it offers a great view.
Francesco took us to an unbelievable restaurant for lunch. It was unlike any building I had ever been in. Francesco said the interior was very similar to the way the houses were in the three towns that we visited yesterday. The entire interior of the restaurant was built into the rocks, giving each room a very rustic cave like appearance. It was extremely cool. In addition to that, lunch was a seriously delicious fine dining experience. Per usual, Mom and I split an appetizer of a porcini mushroom tart that was garnished with blueberries and walnuts, a very thin parmesan bowl filled with gnocchi covered in a pumpkin sauce, and then pork rolls that were stuffed with ricotta cheese, spinach, and sausage smothered in a truffle sauce and served with a potato cake. We literally thought we had died and gone to heaven. Everything was perfect. Mom has also been on a kick of trying white wines, because there are actually some over here that she enjoys the taste of, so we had two glasses of a very crisp fresh white wine of the region that had a serious pear flavor to it.
After lunch we went to see the duomo of Siena. It was an absolutely beautiful church. We admired all of the intricate details for a while. There was a painting by Rafael in there, which was cool to see, even though I don’t take much stock in religious artwork. There was a very cool bookstore tent beside the duomo. It was cool because it was a clear tent and had some great classical music blasting from it. Mom looked for a while for a nice coffee table book about Tuscany, but I couldn’t last long in the tent because I was roasting from the sunlight. By the afternoon, the clouds had clear and the sun with blue skies came out. Mom didn’t end up finding a coffee table book, so we have on our list to keep our eyes peeled for that item.
As we walked to the edge of the city, we stopped in many ceramic shops. We were looking for some reasonably priced wine holders and Christmas ornaments that said Tuscany on them. Eventually we lucked out and found a deal. We looked in a could more boutiques on the way out too and made some purchases, which are to be kept confidential. Since we didn’t have dessert at lunch (Note: We are in Italy to eat and not to diet. 2010 will be for serious dieting, but until then I will enjoy every bite) and since Mom had not had gelato in Italy yet, we stopped in a Gelateria and got Mom her first. She has strawberry and I had black cherry, and both were incredibly tasty.
On the way home, with the skies cleared, there was a beautiful sunset. We got back to the villa around 5:30 and had to be at the restaurant at 6 for our third cooking course. It was another great night of cooking delicious and nutritious food and enjoying good wine and company. The beagles were being especially playful tonight and it was entertaining to watch. A major priority of ours now is to figure out how we are going to get all of our purchases back to the US. I did a bit a research on possible methods and it looks like we have some options, which takes some stress off our shoulders. But lets be realistic, how stressed can you be shopping, cooking, eating, and drinking your way through Tuscany?
Monday, November 9, 2009
11/8/2009 Recipes
11/8/2009 Dinner Recipes
(serves 6-8 people)
Two kinds of gnocchi (regular potato and pumpkin)
Potato Gnocchi
- Boil 1 kilo of potatoes
o Peel and put through a ricer
- Mix together like pasta (working in the circular formation with a fork) 300g flour, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt
o Add these ingredients to the potatoes half at a time
- Mix gently and completely so that when you cut into to the dough bun, you only see potato and no flour
o Let the bun relax
- Sauce
o The base of the sauce is EVOO, tomatoe paste, a little water, and salt
• Bring to a slow boil
• Then add garlic cloves and you can add vegetable bullion if you want
o Take pieces of lamb, beef, pork (whatever you have)
• Sprinkle them with salt, parmesan, and pepper
• Roll the meat up and stick it with a toothpick
• Sautee the meat in EVOO with garlic cloves
• Add a ladle of the tomato sauce and bring to a slow boil
• Add another ladle and mix, and another ladle, and another until you can see minimal oil in the sauce
o In between each ladle let the sauce mix and absorb with the oil
• All while mixing over a slow boil
• Can add basil here
o When you can finally see minimal oil, add one last ladle of sauce over meat, reduce heat, and cover
• After 20 minutes add some water.
- Heat up some of the sauce with cooked gnocchi in it
o Do not include the meat rolls in final sauce
o Add pepper and shaved Parmesan
Pumpkin Gnocchi
- More than 1 kilo of raw pumpkin, but when it is baked, skinned, and pureed it should come out to 700g, 200g ricotta cheese, 200g flour, 60g of grated parmesan, a pinch of salt, pepper, nutmeg, and 3 eggs
- Flour is very important with the mixing because the pumpkin will be wetter
- Mix the same way as above
- Sauce
o Melt butter with sage leaves in it and a bit of cream
• Bring to a boil
• Then turn down the heat
When forming the gnocchi
- Cut off pieces of bun
- Snake roll the dough and get the outside covered with flour
o Roll out by fanning out with your hands and don’t roll back towards you
o Looking for very circular roll, cut into pieces
o Roll the pieces over a grooved edge like a fork
When cooking the gnocchi
- Boil water, EVOO, and salt in a wide pan so you will be able to see everything
- Gnocchi are finished when they float
o It does not take very long
*Using flour in these mixtures is important but you also must be careful and pay attention to the texture
Veal Cutlets
- Pat cutlets in flour
- Cook only right before you are about to eat them
- To cook, sautéed cutlets in butter and a bit of water mixture
o Do not brown
- Sauce
o 30 g butter, 1.5 tsp Dijon mustard, 3tbs green pepper, 100g heavy cream
o Stirred together
- Add sauce to butter/water mixture
- Add 80g walnuts
Carrots
- Boil carrots and cut into pieces
- Sautee in EVOO with garlic cloves
- Add salt
Fritelle Dessert
- 250g boiled potatoes, pealed and put through the ricer, 250 g flour, 1 eggs, 50g butter, 50g sugar, pinch of salt, an entire lemon of zest, 1 packet of yeast mixed with warm milk
o All mixed together like you would with pasta.
o Flour is important here for mixing
- Cut off pieces of bun and roll out pieces, so that you can loop them around to make a ribbon shape
- Let rise all set out
- Fry in EVOO after risen in a small amount of oil
- Sprinkle powdered sugar on the top
(serves 6-8 people)
Two kinds of gnocchi (regular potato and pumpkin)
Potato Gnocchi
- Boil 1 kilo of potatoes
o Peel and put through a ricer
- Mix together like pasta (working in the circular formation with a fork) 300g flour, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt
o Add these ingredients to the potatoes half at a time
- Mix gently and completely so that when you cut into to the dough bun, you only see potato and no flour
o Let the bun relax
- Sauce
o The base of the sauce is EVOO, tomatoe paste, a little water, and salt
• Bring to a slow boil
• Then add garlic cloves and you can add vegetable bullion if you want
o Take pieces of lamb, beef, pork (whatever you have)
• Sprinkle them with salt, parmesan, and pepper
• Roll the meat up and stick it with a toothpick
• Sautee the meat in EVOO with garlic cloves
• Add a ladle of the tomato sauce and bring to a slow boil
• Add another ladle and mix, and another ladle, and another until you can see minimal oil in the sauce
o In between each ladle let the sauce mix and absorb with the oil
• All while mixing over a slow boil
• Can add basil here
o When you can finally see minimal oil, add one last ladle of sauce over meat, reduce heat, and cover
• After 20 minutes add some water.
- Heat up some of the sauce with cooked gnocchi in it
o Do not include the meat rolls in final sauce
o Add pepper and shaved Parmesan
Pumpkin Gnocchi
- More than 1 kilo of raw pumpkin, but when it is baked, skinned, and pureed it should come out to 700g, 200g ricotta cheese, 200g flour, 60g of grated parmesan, a pinch of salt, pepper, nutmeg, and 3 eggs
- Flour is very important with the mixing because the pumpkin will be wetter
- Mix the same way as above
- Sauce
o Melt butter with sage leaves in it and a bit of cream
• Bring to a boil
• Then turn down the heat
When forming the gnocchi
- Cut off pieces of bun
- Snake roll the dough and get the outside covered with flour
o Roll out by fanning out with your hands and don’t roll back towards you
o Looking for very circular roll, cut into pieces
o Roll the pieces over a grooved edge like a fork
When cooking the gnocchi
- Boil water, EVOO, and salt in a wide pan so you will be able to see everything
- Gnocchi are finished when they float
o It does not take very long
*Using flour in these mixtures is important but you also must be careful and pay attention to the texture
Veal Cutlets
- Pat cutlets in flour
- Cook only right before you are about to eat them
- To cook, sautéed cutlets in butter and a bit of water mixture
o Do not brown
- Sauce
o 30 g butter, 1.5 tsp Dijon mustard, 3tbs green pepper, 100g heavy cream
o Stirred together
- Add sauce to butter/water mixture
- Add 80g walnuts
Carrots
- Boil carrots and cut into pieces
- Sautee in EVOO with garlic cloves
- Add salt
Fritelle Dessert
- 250g boiled potatoes, pealed and put through the ricer, 250 g flour, 1 eggs, 50g butter, 50g sugar, pinch of salt, an entire lemon of zest, 1 packet of yeast mixed with warm milk
o All mixed together like you would with pasta.
o Flour is important here for mixing
- Cut off pieces of bun and roll out pieces, so that you can loop them around to make a ribbon shape
- Let rise all set out
- Fry in EVOO after risen in a small amount of oil
- Sprinkle powdered sugar on the top
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