Rattle Those Pots

September 8, 2004

Ciao! Come sta?

La Scuola Commincia, Molto Divertirmento Per Me
(School Begins, Much Fun for Me)
Orientation went smoothly last week. We walked in on the first morning to find about 25 men waiting…and no women. Not a biggie, but it made us chuckle. Several other guys and a few women had joined the crowd, though, by the time the first session started. Many of the students are American (young guys), which is sort of a bummer, but we seem to be bonding with the international students (from South Africa, Asia, UK, and Latin America), and the folks in the program who are in their 30s.

We got a kick out of all of the orientation forms and disclaimers everyone had to sign, accompanied by instructions along the lines of, “If there is a fire, do not talk to anyone other than Apicius staff,” or, “If the building has to be evacuated for an emergency, do not talk to any police or bystanders. Contact only Apicius staff.” By day’s end, we were wondering what incidents the school may have witnessed in past years, and started to feel a little surprised that the building was still standing.

It’s Thursday morning now, and so far we’ve had three classes: Italian Regional Cuisine (Monday), Kitchen Fundamentals (Tuesday), and Nutrition (Wednesday). Tonight we have Italian; we took our placement test and are both in the Intermediate section. Tomorrow we have a different cooking class, and Friday, Wine Appreciation I.

Our professor for Italian Regional Cuisine lives a block away from us, turns out. We ran into him last night in the piazza. Pretty serious guy, but a hipster too, which doesn’t seem to match. The first day in his class we made sautéed sweet and sour pork loin with a spiced chickpea puree, and a pear cake with pear liqueur and cinnamon for dessert. It was tasty. Surprisingly simple to make, too, which is great, all stovetop (other than baking the dessert, of course). If anybody wants any recipes I mention, just send a note and I’ll email. It looks like a lot will be good for entertaining, etc..

When we finish each dish, the process seems to be to taste the instructor’s dish first, and then taste our own to compare. We were relieved to score well the first time out on everything except “slightly overcooking the meat and garlic.” (Oops. Lesson learned.) We’re not used to cooking so much on high; it seems odd to cook meat at such high, high temperatures.

The second day, in Kitchen Fundamentals, we worked on knife skills (gulp) for a few minutes. We’d picked up our knives (four per set) the week before, and they seemed enormous to me. Duccio, the instructor, seems very easygoing and patient. We all tried so hard not to laugh at one point, though, during his intro remarks when we were all standing by our stations. During his opening comments detailing each knife and how each was used, he held up the chef’s knife, the largest of the four, and said “Be very, very careful with this. Place it like so against your cutting board when not in use. Never, never carry it any other way than this.”

Then there was a long pause, and he looked at each cooking station, slowly held up the enormous knife, and warned in his heavily accented English: “Remember, this knife…this knife can kill a man.” Yikes.

It’s not funny, but I guess we were just punchy and nervous by that point, and the Godfather-like solemnity of his delivery — plus the fact that he’d even felt the need to point that out in the first place — made us wonder if perhaps he’d learned this troubling fact from personal experience.

We all started chopping after directions and Duccio’s demonstration, and within the first 20 minutes of chopping carrots, celery, onions and garlic into tiny bits, four different people had cut themselves. I started to get spooked. (You have to use the chef’s knife for chopping, which was a scary way to begin.) He said to expect cuts and burns, which of course makes sense, but it’s creepy just waiting for it to happen. That part’s not fun. I’m just making sure I don’t try to do anything fast too soon, though, because that seems to be where folks ran into trouble (re: blood on the chopping board).

Duccio also seemed entertained by closing the doors to the outside patio during onion chopping, making it hard for any of us with severely watering eyes to even see straight. Given his chuckles, it’s a little game he plays to initiate the rookies, we suspect.

We had our first nutrition class last night. Since the instructor is very pretty, a few of the loud, younger American guys (two of whom had cut themselves the day before), tried to show how clever and witty they were at the beginning. When she let folks know she’d earned her PhD in chemistry and nutrition from Oxford and began a technical lecture, though, that seemed to clam them up. It was pretty funny. Little bit of trivia: our taste buds are most sensitive up to age 6, which nutritionists argue could be part of what makes small children such finicky eaters. Interessante.

We have a bunch of field trips coming up that look like they’ll be fun. One noncooking-related one is a soccer game on November 7, Firenze vs Milan. We’re told this game is absolutely insane each year, so we’re searching for crash helmets. Ben and Anna let us know that the entire city goes mad on game days with all sorts off antics and Fan Loyalty Craziness, so we’re pretty curious to see this firsthand.

Nostro Vicinanza (Our Neighborhood)
I’m sitting at Caffe degli Artigiani (great little coffee bar on the piazza by our apartment) typing this, and around me men are hammering and hanging more lanterns.

We discovered that last night through tomorrow night, the piazza has a three-day festival. Last night was for children, and the piazza was packed. I’m not sure what the history of this is (it commemorates some sort of battle, we were informed), but apparently, some of the children (one team) are given paper lanterns on poles with candles lighting them, once it’s dark. Other children (the other team) are given peashooters, the object being to blow a dried pea out of the pole, and into the lantern—or as many peas as it takes to make the lantern burn. (Yes, I’m serious.) Then everybody gathers around the burning lantern on the ground and cheers. It didn’t really seem like a fair fight for the kids with the paper lanterns on skinny poles. Two of the peashooters, probably about six years old, were even using walkie-talkies!

We were sitting with Ben and Anna at this same coffee bar watching the action last night, and guessing that the entire event would be grounds for a class-action suit in the U.S. It did sort of make us nervous, though, aside from the fire — I kept waiting for a dried pea to hit one of the little lantern-holding kids right smack in the eye.

The scene really was beautiful, though—torches were burning in the square up on the buildings, a lot of lanterns had been hung, and little kids were walking around with all of these brightly-colored, beautiful paper lanterns (until they were burned as a result of flying peas, that is). Beforehand, there was a big puppet show, and a very small pony held court in a corner of the piazza by some bushes. Great scene, and it lasted til midnight. It was fun watching people bike around the square with excited little kids on their bikes. All of the adults just strolled around with prosecco, and visited with friends while the kids went nuts. Wonderful night to be a part of.

One part of the evening, in particular, was really eye-catching: there was a little girl in a long white sundress who couldn’t have been more than three years old. Her hair was so blond it was almost white, and she was Italian. All of the young Italian girls kept following her around while she was carrying her lantern, staring at her hair and reaching out over and over again just to touch it, almost petting it. It was so interesting.

We’d read that since hair that light wasn’t too common, people would be fascinated by it when they’d see it. This must have gone on for a half-hour, though, until the girl’s mother walked her out of the piazza. The little girl seemed to be totally oblivious to the curious little hands on her head, though, and just kept guarding her pretty pink lantern from the infernal peashooters. I took a picture of her when she wasn’t surrounded, and when I figure out how to send pictures, I’ll be sure to include it. (I’ve got them on my computer, but don’t know how to email them yet.)

Tonight is one of the “adult nights” of the festival, and there will be food and wine, and music on the stage where the puppet show was last night. Should be fun.

Nostro Giovane Insegnanti (Our Young Teachers)
We are being taught Italian regularly now by bambini (small kids), but hey, whatever helps. Cinzia, who co-owns the piazza coffee bar with Marco (whom I’ve written about before), has a seven-year-old son named Filipo who is absolutely fantastic. He and his nine-year-old friend Valeria (Marco’s neice) have been giving us lessons, and so far they’ve taught us a bunch of nouns, some slang, and how to conjugate a few verbs. Filipo knows a few words in English, so we’re teaching him days of the week and colors. He loves to play with Charlie (“CHARRR-lee”), and we play lots of games by the tables outside the bar. Absolutely adorable, clever little boy, and we’re lucky to have him as a neighbor. He makes us miss our niece and nephlets more, though.

Mio Cane Matto (My Crazy Dog)
Since Charlie kept choking himself with his collar every time he’d lunge for pigeons on the prowl, Thom bought him a little harness that seems to be working well. Filipo has pseudo-adopted Charlie, and brings him treats and water every time he sits with us at the coffee bar (he’s lounging at our feet right now, warily watching a fellow playing an accordion in the piazza). Charlie is getting very, very spoiled from all the attention he gets from the restaurant folks all around the piazza, and from passersby.

Now we’re hungry, and are taking off to go find dinner. Hope everybody’s doing well!

Arrivederci,

Jen

Postscript: A horse and buggy just went through the piazza and Charlie almost knocked the entire table over. First one we’ve seen over here.