The Halftime Report

We couldn’t come to Italy without taking a cooking class.  The first one we took in Piemonte was a little unusual in that we didn’t learn to make any pasta.  The food we made there was regional, traditional “summer” food which didn’t include too many things that had to be cooked for a long time in order to keep the kitchen cool.  While the dishes were interesting, I’m not sure that I’ll be replicating them any time soon for guests back home.  The one exception was a dolce/dessert called Mottone, which means ” the brick” and is made with about a pound of Mascarpone cheese.   (We already made it again the first time we had an apartment with a kitchen.)

While that class was fun, it still left us unfulfilled in our quest to learn how to make pasta.  Our route east from France brought us near Bologna, so we decdided to stay there a few days and try another cooking class.  This one was at a bigger cooking school and was all about fresh pasta, in particular a type called Sfoglia that is made in this region.  While I need a lot more practice with the rolling pin, I’m still pretty proud of my first attempt.  We spent a lot of time learning to make the dough, the techniques for rolling it out, and how to make different shapes, including Tortelloni, Tortellini, Farfalle, Tagliatelle, and Garganelli.  The Tortellini are particularly tricky, but ours survived the cooking and tasted great.

Here is the “before” picture of the Tortelloni.  I got a bit too excited and ate them, so there is no ”after” picture. 

When our trunk was fully stocked with great wines from Piemonte, we headed to Lombardy and the lakes.  We are renting an apartment at Lake Maggiorre and it has been great to have a kitchen again, as well as more space.  In addition to cooking, we’ve also been spending our days exploring the lake by foot and by ferry.  The roads are narrow and twisty, but Iàm coping and learning how to drive Italian-style.  I got some extra practice on the way back from Lake Como during rush hour.

The road craziness aside, this area is very picturesque:

I can’t take credit or blame for that cute title. It’s actually the name of a sort of gourmet-mall-supermarket in Turin. We’ve been searching for a cooking class (there are tons of them advertised, but most are week long, luxury vacations with a little cooking thrown in) and someone referred us to Eataly. It didn’t actually have any classes available while we were there, but it’s a paradise for foodies to visit anyway. There are huge sections devoted to just pasta or mushrooms. There is a walk-in, temperature controlled aging cellar for cheeses, and another just for hams. While we were there, we tried a local concoction called Becirin. It’s a shot of espresso, with dark chocolate syrup and whipped cream. It’s unbelievably rich and more potent than Red Bull at keeping me wired for hours afterward.

This store got us thinking and talking about the food and wine here in Italy. There’s no other way to say it - it’s simply excellent. By that expression, I mean two things. It’s actually very simple food. The ingredients are basic - tomatoes, basil, pasta, bread, salami, cheese. No fancy sauces, but just olive oil and vinegar. However, each one seems to be the best it can be and stands on it’s own. In other words, each is excellent. Combined, they create some of the best dishes we’ve had on the trip.

We’re staying in the Piedmont area now, which is best known for wine. It’s the region that produces the great Barbaresco, Barolo, and Moscato vintages. We’ve visited a few of the local Enoteca Regionales where you can taste and buy wines, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed them so far. However, this area also has great culinary tradition as well. We checked in to our apartment in a village of about 600 people and they gave us a list of local restaurants. There are 6 Michelin starred restaurants within 16kms. I can’t wait…

The vineyards along the road to our village:

After weeks of ferries, buses, trains, and just good old walking, we are back in our own set of wheels again.  Maybe it’s just the SoCal in me, but I’m sick of public transportation.  Waiting for buses that don’t come and sitting on trains that don’t go has stretched the limits of my new-found travelers’s patience.  I know buses are necessary and good for the environment (and cheap), but I don’t have to like them.

After yet another bus ride, three more trains, and a final agonizingly slow bus that stopped at every block, we arrived in Nice and picked up our new car.  There is a special buy-back lease program in France for non-EU citizens, so we are now the proud owners of a Peugot 207 SW, at least for the next 2 1/2 months.  It’s more fun to drive than I expected and much easier than the NZ campervan which had the shifter on the “wrong” side. It’s 90 HP, diesel, and has a cool GPS (a computerized version of me navigating who seems to do a better job of it).

Getting a car is allowing us a lot more flexibillity in where we can stay.  We no longer have to look for hotels that are in walking distance of a station, and are hoping to head for some smaller towns off the tourist trail.  On our first night with the new car we headed back into Italy to Cuneo and we’re off to the wine regions next.  Here’s a few pictures of our mobility.

Check out the odometer… only 4kms when we got it!  And that new car smell too! 

We’ve become cycling fans over the last few years, so the chance to see one of the big classic races while in Europe was on our “To Do” list. It just so happened that our path crossed the Giro d’Italia in the Cinque Terre region in northern Italy.

For those who have never heard of it, the Giro is a 3 week race around Italy (like their version of the Tour de France).  However, the fans in Italy are more intense and the Italian riders always seem to pull out incredible victories every time. We spent a sunny day near the finish line of a stage in beautiful Riomaggiore. It was a time trial stage which meant we got to seem each rider go by individually. All of our favorite big names in cycling were there - Basso, Sastre, Menchov, DiLuca (in the Maglia Rosa!),  Leipheimer, Cavendish, and of course, Lance Armstrong, back from retirement. Here he is heading to the uphill finish: