Monday, June 14, 2010

Stuffed Flowers, Pressed Pasta, and Corn Cake...oh my

Although it seems unreal that time has gone by so quickly, this past weekend was my last weekend in Verona. The past week was nice, because there wasn’t much to do in the way of classes. After a week of studying like crazy for midterms, it was nice to be able to sit back and take in Verona and prepare for the weekend.

As Thursday drew near, a majority of the group packed their bags and bathing suits for the bright city of Barcelona. Around 35 of our 59 person group decided to head out to Barcelona for a weekend of Espanol and some of the best clubs in the world. The small group remaining branched off in different areas around Europe, but four others and myself decided to stay the weekend in Northern Italy. I had decided before I came on the trip that I wanted to go ahead and “do” Italy, so that when I come back to Europe in the future I can go to a different area of Europe without having so much that I still want to see in Italy. This being said, our four day weekend itinerary was packed.

The weekend started off in the sleepy town of Dossobuono. Well, sleepy is probably an understatement. This town was in a coma. So how did we end up wandering up and down the single street of Dossobuono? This little town just so happened to be our meeting place with Luisa, our cooking instructor for the cooking class that we were taking on Thursday night. Having the starry-eyed perception that everything in Italy must be beautiful and quaint (which most places are) we decided that busing into Dossobuono early would give us a chance to explore a new city. Well, it turns out there wasn’t much of a city…just a street and a bus stop.

Once we met up with Luisa though, everything was worth it. As we piled out of her car, once we reached her house, she told us to try some cherries from the cherry trees in her front yard. Good first impression – especially since they were the best cherries I have ever had. And then came the menu. I really think that the food we made at her house was some of the best food that I have ever eaten. For appetizers we made ricotta and ham stuffed zucchini flowers (exotic? Yes.), then came a delicious entrĂ©e of home-made ravioli with pumpkin in sage and butter sauce (and we actually made the pasta – like out of dough), and finally we made corn and almond crumble with Grappa for dessert. It was absolutely delicious!! A wonderful way to start off a weekend of day tripping – and certainly a five star break from the ten minute meals we have been making in our rooms.

More to come later on the three cities that we visited. For now, enjoy the pictures.


After we cooked the dinner, we all sat down with Luisa and had a nice meal and nice conversation.


Cooking...cooking...cooking...


Best cherries ever

2 comments:

  1. Your post made me hungry! What a trip of a lifetime!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Man, what a deal!

    Authentic cooking --- and grappa?

    ReplyDelete