Rainy days are still beautiful in Italy

On Tuesday (5/1), it was a beautiful morning and most of the group decided to walk to the villa in the morning. I was still exhausted from jetlag and because we stayed up until after midnight, so I opted to sleep in the extra 45 minutes. True, it would have been good to get the exercise to work off some of that gazillion calories I'd been ingesting, but I was on vacation, so just let it go people....

View outside my bedroom  looking the other way

View out the the living room into the piazza

Jenna the barrista (aka the espresso beeotch)

Shortly after we arrived at the villa, it started to rain. No worries though, because the wine started flowing almost immediately after I finished making espressos and cappuccinos for the group.

All of today's ingredients beautifully displayed

Carla demonstrates the proper way to tie the roast so that the pancetta maintains full contact with the roast

 We made Bolognese sauce (now I know what I'm going to do with all my tomatoes in the garden this summer!), Brasato al Barolo roast and panna cotta with strawberry/wine/amaretto sauce, and finally...Pappardelle. On the side, Carla decided to prepare some spinach to go with the roast and surprised us all when she added the slightest hint of nutmeg.

Demonstrating the proper way to release the Pappardelle from its folds

The best laid plans...

Well sorry folks... I had hoped to update the blog throughout the week, but we had a pretty full schedule and the next couple of times I was near the computer, others in the group were using it to arrange their travel plans for the following week. So, now I have double duty in order to catch everyone up. I think since I took over 1200 photos, that it's going to take a little time to sift through them and I may have to spread out the remainder of the trip highlights over the next week or so. I've at least got all the photos downloaded onto the computer now. Unfortunately,  I haven't even finished jotting down all my notes in my hand written journal...

Anyhooooo...the last entry was sparse on details, so I may come back to that later to fill in more.

I woke up Sunday morning and enjoyed the amazing view outside my window.

Lots of cooking on Sunday ...we made Panzanella, Tuscan roasted chicken and potatoes and tiramisu.  Carla is a wonderful cook and I love the family style cooking atmosphere rather than a formal academic style. We spent about 5 hours cooking and socializing and were able to enjoy our lunch in the outdoor cabana.

After lunch we went to Pitigliano. It was a medieval town with the quaintest feel to it. I've always loved doors, and I think I took about 50 pictures of different doors.

We visited the Jewish Ghetto which is a series of underground caves that they used for sacred ceremonies. There was also a kosher wine cellar...

Unfortunately, when we arrived back in Soriano and took a quick break to go back to our apartments for a minute before dinner, I arrived at mine to find two strange girls inside...taking the skybox (cable). Not speaking a word of English, I was trying to interpret what they were saying with my dictionary. Casa nostra means 'our house'. They put the box back and left. Of course I was a bit rattled after that, so when I went to dinner, I told Rocky (part of CDV) what had happened, so he made some phone calls.

Rocky came to the rescue and was very quick to get to the bottom of it. Turns out the owner did not have it on his books that the apartment was reserved for the week and sent his daughter to go get the cable box (we're still not really sure why). Anyway, I felt better knowing that it was just an accidental mix up.

On Monday, we did not have any cooking classes and went to a few towns to visit the wine cellars. The first one we went to was in the same town with the piazza that the movie New Moon was filmed in.

The wine cellar we visited is widely recognized as the most beautiful wine cellar in the world. We went to Castelnuovo d'Abate to hear the Gregorian chant by the monks.

We visited another winery Solaria, where I bought a wonderful wine called Brunello. Then we went into Pienza for cheese tasting...I had no idea there were so many versions of Pecorino! Dinner was at the mountain villa of Maria Grazia for a homemade dinner that was so good, I think I would have licked my plate had there not been witnesses.

I have to get off the computer now because today we are back at Villa Eddarella cooking and the pasta dough has finished rising...