Italian Cookery Course - Day Two, Sunday 11th May 2014

Well – we found out what the ear plugs were for! The bells!! Every hour on the hour, and then every hour on the three minutes past the hour. Not saying that I heard every one, but even I couldn't sleep through that. I am sure by the end of the week we will all not even notice them.
The cookery lesson this morning started at 10 o'clock, so we met for breakfast at a very civilised 9am. Bearing in mind the food we ate yesterday – and feeling that the quantities were going to be very similar for the rest of the week, I was hoping for once in my life that the hotel did not have an egg station. It didn't. But what it did have was a fantastic array of breakfast choice. The strawberries that I put I my granola were of the sweetest variety that I have ever tasted. I left it at that – choosing not to partake in the pastries or the chocolate cake or the home made bread, or any of the other hams and cheeses that were on display. All of the cheese, bread, honey and everything else is all made in house by the family. There is the mamma and papa, two sons and their wives, the 96 year old mammas mama and I am sure a few cousins thrown in as well.
The “Father” of the village popped his head around the door to say good morning – he apparently comes here for breakfast on a Sunday. I think the reason was “buying their way into heaven”! No harm in keeping on the right side of the almighty with leftover food.
One of the sons was taking the pasta making lesson this morning. We all were issued with our own souvenir aprons, and went into a room that had nine tables laid with large wooden blocks on top, a huge three foot or so rolling pin, flour and eggs. We first had a little lecture about how good pasta is made – and only with the best ingredients, and that each kitchen has its own “king”. Was he trying to tell us who was in charge? I think so! We had to start by tipping out the flour, and then make a large hole in the middle. Then put the eggs in the middle. You could tell that this cooking lark was new to Bill & Nick – they just picked the eggs up and laid them in the middle. Not quite sure that's what he meant!
This was then all mixed together, and then the hard work began. We first had to knead the dough with the heel of the wrist to put “power into the dough”. I could feel it transferring out right down my arm! After fifteen or so minutes of kneading, the dough went in a bowl for ten minutes to rest. We were making ravioli and tagliatelle, so whilst this was resting Massimo made the filling for the ravioli. Home made ricotta cheese (which tasted nothing like we get at home), spinach, salt, pepper and nutmeg all got mixed together. We then had to make the pasta look like pasta. No machines like on Masterchef here. Everything made by hand. We first had to make the lump look a bit like a steering wheel, then roll and flip to keep it in a round shape. Every time it was rolled out it seemed to shrink back to the size it was originally. This could be a long job! After a while he said he would show us another way of making it so that you could read a newspaper through it. It involved putting it on the rolling pin, “shaking” it with the palm of your hand and rolling it up at the same time, turning it and unrolling it. Couldn't actually make sense of how that was going to work, but it did. We soon all had sheets of pasta that were about two feet in diameter. This was cut in half, and one half was prepared for the ravioli. We all had a bowl of the filling mixture. The half we were working on was folded in half to make a crease down the middle. Then little blobs of filling had to evenly spaced all over one half. The other half was folded over the top and then the side of the hand was used to stick the top and bottom pasta together in between the blobs of filling. Then we used a ravioli cutter to cut little squares out with the filling in the middle, and it looked amazingly like ravioli! The other half of the pasta was folded over and over again, and then cut into half inch lines, which opened out into long pieces of tagliatelle. Easy peasy!!
Marissa came back in with another bottle of prosecco. They sure do know how to end a lesson over here! We did attempt to sit out in the courtyard for half an hour before lunch, but it was a bit windy. The empty glasses were even blown over, so we decided to retire to the dining room for lunch. We started with a salad with everything grown in mamma's garden. Then we had the ravioli to follow. It was rather nice. Even looked like it should have done after it was cooked. I had visions of the filling being more out than in. Another round of clean plates!
The dining room was packed full today – family Sunday lunches. What we did notice was that some people were having ravioli that looked very familiar, and some were having tagliatelle. It was indeed, we ascertained, our pasta. Does this make us professional chefs now I wonder? All the paying clientèle also had clean plates, so really couldn't have been too bad.

We had a couple of hours for a quick siesta before we met at 3.30pm for the afternoon tour to the local winery. Well – this was afternoon tea like I had never had before. We first drove just over thirty minutes to the Placci winery, owned and run by Emilio Ploacci – who spoke no English. Massimo – the chef from this morning – was now our driver and ultimately the translator. This was an organic vineyard. We went to see the vines, and learned all about the different types of wine produced here. There were barrels upon barrels stored in the stone cold storeroom.

From there, we went into the “tearoom”. We were not only going to be tasting several types of wine, but also several types of food that is produced here as well. We started with a Chardonnay-Savignon white – something of which I had not tasted the likes of before. Ron was definitely the wine expert of the group, and he was very happy. This was accompanied by home made bread with three types of olive oil. Another five red wines followed, along with two types of salami, prosciutto ham, sheep’s cheese, a pork something that tasted like my grandmother's wardrobe smelt (the only one I didn't like) and several more pieces of bread to soak up the copious amounts of wine being consumed. This all took place over over two hours – and we all staggered out very very happy! The wine was amazingly good, because Emilio did a very good trade this afternoon. Excess baggage on the way home – or will it all be consumed before then? Never before in the afternoon have I been in charge of a group like this!! Someone mentioned a sing song on the way down, but luckily after one verse they gave up.
We all got back in the minibus, and started our journey down the mountain back to the hotel. It looked as if a tornado had been through the region whilst we had been tasting the wine – there was tree debris all over the road. We hadn't heard a thing! We got back to the hotel at just before 7pm – and had to be ready for dinner at 7.30pm. This is just one long eating and drinking expedition.

Time for a quick shower. Down for dinner – where everyone was present and correct, and were looking all quite sprightly. Although some, I noticed, were only on the water! Another lovely four course meal – sheep's cheese and broad beans antipasti, a pasta and mozzarella pancake thing, veal with a truffle sauce and chocolate mousse. What this hotel lacks in respect of the rooms it certainly makes up for with the food and the friendly service.  Whilst I was sitting in the dining room finishing the blog, Marissa came in and asked me to turn the lights off when I went to bed.  Must be only me left then!!