December

It is already December, and man did it come quick(that’s what she said) sorry, I had too. So yeah, it’s December here in Italy and we still don’t have any snow, today was probably close to 50 degrees. Classes are also officially over, and it’s time to relax because the amazing European adventure starts on Monday. On Monday I head to Amsterdam until the 10th, and then to Cairo Egypt for another six days. After that, I have no idea. I need to get my stuff together, get packing, and pray that my wine doesn’t get confiscated by customs. Wow, so much to do in the next few days.

Nothing can ruin my day. Why? because the dreaded Capatti History of Italian Cuisine exam is done. I can finally enjoy life again, that is until next Wed. when I have an Environmental law exam. Until then, everything is great! Even the fact that I have been without internet for almost three weeks now because Telecom Italia won’t fix ours, can’t get me down. You may be wondering why this test is so nerve racking, well, it is because every student who has taken this exam has failed at least once. Also, professor Capatti is nuts, and everything he says is borderline incoherent. So, thanks UNH for making us take this course. Either way, hopefully this is the last of it.

Eurogusto is next week, and four spots have opened up to go. Eurogusto is a conference like Terramadre, but specifically designed for students and the SlowFood youth. This is the first year, for it, and it should be very exciting. Two of these spots were offered to the NH students. Since there are nine of us, and only two can go, we did the most obvious thing. Put our names in a hat, and had our professor pick two. Well, I was not chosen, Matt and Emily were. So they will get a four day, expenses paid, experience in France. But I’m not jealous, or bitter…

Time to celebrate the weekend, like good Americans, party time!

Turkey Lurkey

Well it sure has been a while since my last update, but I have been pretty busy. Last week I was on olive oil stage in Liguria; learning about everything olive from the growing and pruning of the trees too pressing the “pasta” to extract the oil. It is truly amazing to learn so much about something so simple.

Unfortunately this info is about a week over due since I have not had consistent internet for about two weeks. Thanks TelecomItalia for your wonderfully slow response time. So since then, my days have mostly consisted of going to class, stealing as much internet as possible, then going home and playing solitaire on my computer for hours until I go to bed. Fun, I know.

So here is some way better news, for me. I am officially on the home stretch, I can see the finish line and I am running full speed ahead. I only have three more weeks of class, and four exams to get out of the way, and I am home free. Which means, it is time to start planning trips for after the exams. Right now it looks like I will be going to Amsterdam, and hopefully Cairo, Egypt. After that it is pretty up in the air. I have some crazy notion that I want to go to Russia, somewhere like Siberia to drink homemade vodka. Why you ask? I in fact have no idea where this notion came from, no not the vodka part that’s just because I enjoy vodka , but the Russia part. I just think it would be wicked pissah to go to the heart of the cold war era. I did just say wicked pissah, because I am from Mass, and I have been trying to integrate it into the Italian language.

With that said, I digress, and would like to talk about something else very important. Thanksgiving. Oh how I love turkey and stuffing, and all the various traditional dishes that each family makes Along with the pick football games and Macy’s day parade. Well this year will be a little different, instead of eating with my own family. I will be spending Thanksgiving with my new Italian family. I have never had a Thanksgiving dinner with more than eight or so people, well this year there are 23 people on the list. It’s going to be mega huge! The planning is starting to come together, and soon we will have a list of all the dished people are making.

Only 34 days left here in Italy, better make the most of it.

Wine Stage

It has been a little longer than usually, but no worries because I have some exciting news for you. Wine stage was amazing. Well, maybe that’s not so exciting for you, but it’s exciting for me.
The first day we went to Fontanafredda and learned about their history and got a tour of the production facility. We finished the day off with a guided tasting of one of the companies Barolo wines. Fontanafredda is a very large conventional producer of red and white wines with an annual production of six million bottles. They also had an amazing meditation trail surrounding the vineyard and forest on the property. As well as two restaurants that looked beautiful, one was BBQ style, and one was French.
The next day we visited Osella, a fresh cheese producer. Odd I know since it’s wine stage, but it was still pretty cool. They also had a great lunch after the tour with their cheeses. After that we went back to the school, and had a guided wine tasting of red wines at the wine bank. This was a great experience and I learned so much about how to taste wines.
The third day was jam packed with wine tours. We started at Batasiolo with a tour of their facility. Our tour guide was the company’s sommelier and was able to tell us everything under the sun about wine and the winery. Batasiolo is also a large conventional producer of red and white wines with an annual production of about 2.5 million bottles. They took us out to lunch in Barolo which was very nice. We got to have a glass…or two, of three of the companies wines. A 08’ Roero, a 07’ Barbera, and a 04’ Barolo. Along with some company Grappa. I couldn’t have asked for a better lunch.
So after all that, we had one Moscato producer to visit. We drove to the company Saracco were we saw the vineyards that produce the Moscato grape and we saw the facility where they make it. Moscato is unlike the other wines we tasted because it is white and sweet. The wine is also not aged and is produced in metal tanks. Saracco is a smaller conventional winery with an annual production of 380,000 bottles. We even were gifted a bottle of grappa made by a friend of the winery from skins of the Moscato grapes discarded by Saracco.
The final day of the wine stage was capped off by another visit to the wine bank for a tour and tasting. The wine bank truly is a unique building created as a museum and cooperative for Italian wines. It showcases a little more than hundred wineries with thousands of wine from all over Italy. All wines are more or less given to the wine bank so they can be stored and protected as well as promoted and some sold at a little above cost. We also had a tasting of white wines that really didn’t care for, so I won’t bother talking about that.

Thanks to UNH and UNISG for setting this whole program up for us, it was a great experience for everyone.

Middle aged women: 1 Me: 0

“Ciao ciao grazie ciao prego caio prego grazie ciao ciao.” In Italy that might literally mean hundreds of things. I am relatively sure that those words, no matter the order or frequency can explain everything that has ever happened to you or anyone else or anything in general, ever. Also, throwing in a “si” once in a while helps…usually. I say usually, because up until yesterday nothing has really backfired when I say “si” in response to something I don’t understand. Well that lucky streak came to an abrupt end when I was on the train yesterday and some middle aged Italian lady across from me said something and gestured to something on the train floor, maybe my shoes, or her shoes, or her shopping bag. I don’t know. When I said “si” she and her friend sitting next to her started to laugh at me, and my lack of Italian. Middle aged women: 1 Me: 0
On a more exciting note, I had an amazing time in Siena and Montalcino with Ryan and Emily. We tasted nine different Brunelos local to that region, all of which were amazing. Then we had a great dinner, Tuscan soup, pasta with a wild boar sauce, and a plate of cheese and meat.
And on an even more exciting note, if you can believe it, today is the start of our week long wine stage; it’s going to be awesome! We are visiting two Barolo wineries with wine tastings, a cheese maker (not sure why since its wine stage, but I won’t complain), plus we are doing another two wine tastings at the wine bank here in Pollenzo. Details to come.

Vino

It has been a little more than a month, and I have already tasted my way through many adventures. How about a little recap of what I have experienced so far? Good, here we go;

1. Spent a few days eating nothing but amazing cheese and drinking beer and wine.
2. Decided that the panna cotta at Osteria Del Boccondivino is the best tasting thing that has ever touched my lips…get your mind out of the gutter, jeezz.
3. Gone to, and hiked through the five towns of Cinque Terre. Seen the Mediterranean Sea for the first time.
4. Finished Italian class, history of Italian cuisine, and food history.
5. Scored my first goal against a bunch of Italian soccer players, that does certifiably make me awesome, just in case you were wondering.
6. Gone to two bio dynamic wineries, and had tastings at both, I also received two free bottles of wine. Had my first chocolate tasting with a local artisan chocolate maker.

Now, a few things that are coming up soon;

1. Going to Siena in the region of Tuscany.( That’s actually happing real soon like in day, 10/19)
2. Going on a wine stage, which involves a week of visiting wineries and tasting wines.
3. Seeing my Dad, and going to Milan to visit my cousins with him.
4. Going on an olive oil stage, same thing as wine, but with olive oil. I have been assigned to the Liguria region; I have been told that they have the best olives there.

Finally, things that I still want to do;

1. Go to my distant families’ old winery in Collie Piacenza.
2. Stand on the Champs-Élysées and pretend I won the Tour De France, maybe kiss the ground.
3. Go to Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, Nice, Egypt, Pompeii, Venice, just too many places to name and too little time to go.
4. Go hiking in the Alps.

Time to finish packing for Siena!

It's America...In Italy

It has already been two full weeks of classes here at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, and I only have eight more too go. Granted, one of those eight weeks will be me drinking and learning about wine, and another will be learning about and tasting olive oils. So, in reality it’s only six weeks of actual class left. That’s not so bad.

The two classes we’re taking; History of Cuisine, and History of Italian Cuisine will be over next week which is definitely a good thing.

“In the case of two week old History of Italian Cuisine, you are…NOT, an exciting class. In the case of two week old History of Cuisine, you are…NOT, exciting either.”

Ok so I lost some steam with that last one, but hopefully the Maury reference got the point across. See, it’s not so much that the classes are long and drawn out, I have gotten used to that. It’s that the material that we are learning is either dry, or I already know it.

In History of Cuisine we have been learning about American history with some relation to food for all but one class, and now the entire second section is devoted to it. I learned about American history in elementary school, middle school, and high school. Honestly, do I need to come to Italy to learn more about America? History of Italian Cuisine is better, but not by much. Our teacher is a genius, probable the most knowledgeable person on Italy’s food history, but for the life of him he cannot connect his thoughts. His lectors consist of him rambling on about something relating to Italy’s food history for three hours. I leave feeling more confused than when I walked in.

Now that that is out of my system, I can tell you about the most exciting part of my week, the dinner I helped make with my roommates for our good friends Paolo and Annalise. We made a four course dinner, starting with crostini and fig jam, topped with prosciutto di Parma. Second we had homemade pasta with dried roasted tomatoes and olive oil. Then came a roast beef tartar with an arugula salad and balsamic vinegar dressing, finally we had a baked and seasoned chicken breast with some awesome honey, we bought at cheese, and an arugula salad. The night was a huge hit. Paolo and Annalise also brought two amazing wines, a white Tocai Friulano, and a dessert wine Vigna del Volta.

Not much is happening until next weekend when Paolo has set up a winery tour for us. Now is the time that the vineyards are doing their grape harvesting. It is also white truffle season, awesome!

A Date With History

Italian classes are officially over, and I feel like I have learned enough to get by now. I can understand basic phrases and I’m getting better every day. Come December, I may even be able to speak without planning what I want to say in advance.

Last week was a very exciting one since there was graduation on Thursday, and “Eat In” on Friday. Did I mention I meet Carlo Petrini? No. Well I did. If that name doesn’t ring a bell that’s ok, it’s not like he founded an organization called Slow Food here in Bra, that is now thriving worldwide and has revolutionized the way we view food and sustainability. Oh wait, I guess he did. So yeah, it’s a big deal.

As he formally welcomed use to the school, I did my best to hold myself together, but all I wanted to do was giggle like a teenage girl would around one of the Jonas brothers. After our break in class I went outside with Matt and Ryan and we couldn’t believe who walked around the corner, the man, the myth, the legend; Carlo Petrini. We had another brief conversation with him in our broken Italian about school, his upcoming trip to the USA; he even said that we should have dinner together sometime.

The next big news is the second annual “Eat In.” This is a big community style dinner organized by the school and the second year students as a way to welcome the first year students, and to bring together the whole school. Groups of students prepared meals and brought them to the dinner. I was assigned to a group of who was making traditional Kenyan food and had a great time cooking and eating. The night was very successful, the town even paid for the wine! Try to get Durham to do that.

Finally, the week cumulated with an amazing trip to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a collection of five towns along the coast of Liguria. The five towns are Monterosso, Veranzza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. Throughout the weekend we got a chance to hike the whole trail. We had beautiful weather resulting in some amazing views of the ocean and surrounding hill side. Many more amazing trips to come, I do love it here in Italy.

School is Now in Session

School has officially started. The first week of Italian classes are over and now that I am not cramming my head full of six hours a day worth of Italian, I can take a minute to unwind, and reflect. Italian has been hard to learn, but with so much class it has been getting easier every day. We have been learning basic greetings, verb conjugation in the present tense, descriptions, directions, weather, simple everyday conversational Italian. This is great since I definitely enjoy knowing how to ask for something, rather than pointing and grunting a little.

Last week all had to go into Cuneo to get some government number that allowed us to live in Italy for an extended amount of time, and to get free government health care, woot woot! The trip was quite an adventure, that involved accidentally buying a train ticket instead of a bus ticket, getting off the bus a stop or two too early, and wandering around until we found the correct building. After waiting around for hours we were told only four people actually needed to be there. So, one day wasted due to Italian bureaucracy. Well, I shouldn’t say wasted, I did enjoy the city, and will be going back to see it again, I bought a round way train ticket anyway.

I am excited for next weekend because we are all taking the train to Cinque Terre and hiking to the different towns. All Thanks to Lauren who was kind enough to organize this whole weekend trip!

Time to get some reading done on this beautiful day for one of our courses called History of Cuisine, which starts on Tuesday.

It Helps to Have Friends in High Places

Feeling groggy and bloated after waking up at noon has become common place; after all I have been drinking amazing beer, and eating cheese from three straight days. Throughout these four days I would say I have tried over 50 types of cheeses, mostly from Italy, and about 50 different types of beer, also mostly from Italy. I have also of course had a few glasses of wine along the way.

This festival has given me the chance to experience many artisanal beers, cheeses, wines, balsamic vinegars, and honeys, that I don’t think I will ever get to taste again unless I find myself back here, which is a strong possibility at this point. Everyday has truly been a unique experience.

A few highlights of the festival have been the wine tent, beer tent, and cheese market. Paulo, who also works at the schools wine bank, was working at the wine tent and taught us about six different wines all from the Piedmont region we are living in. We tasted four Barbarescos, and two Barolos. The Brabarescos are lighter in color and taste, the Borolo is a much stronger tasting wine. All these wine are produced within an hour of Bra.

Now onto the beer, and wow, was there a lot of it. To start, I want to say thanks the students working the beer tent for hooking us up every day! I probably paid four euro for the 50 half glasses of beer, all of which were amazing. Some of my favorites were the Winterlude which is a triple and New Morning which is a saison, both made by the same producer. The Black Lizard a super dark, nearly black porter was amazing; it had a strong coffee taste and was very heavy. Re Ale which is American pale ale and was phenomenal, I must have had three glass of that alone. Novi Luna which is another saison and had hints of flowers. It was very light and refreshing. Those round out my top five for the beer, and they were phenomenal.

The beer may have seemed like the main event, and for most people it probably was, but the cheese took the show. I have tried the best of nearly every single kind of cheese there is. Every conception I have of what good cheese is is gone. It is hard to describe what I have tasted, but it has ranged from the creamiest mozzarella, to the sharpest parmigiano reggiano, and the most flavorful blue cheese.

Not to mention the balsamic vinegar. I have tried balsamic vinegar aged for longer than two of my lives; so thick that it took a few seconds before it even began to pour out of the bottle. It also costs about 150euro, around 200 USD for probably a cup and a half. The best part, one of our Italian classmates’, Marco, works there and is going to takes us on a tour. He also said he would get us the balsamic for half price, score! I can’t forget the many types of honey, some made from famous Piemonte hazelnuts, some from pistachios, some from white mustard plus many more.

Now that cheese has come to a close, it’s time to wind down the partying as I get ready to start Italian class on Monday.

Getting Settled in

I am now on my third day here in Bra, and still have not managed a good night sleep. This is probably due to a few factors:
1. I have been drinking lots of awesome wine and not going to bed until at the earliest 3:30 am.
2. There is “aperitivo” which is drinks and snacks at 7 so dinner is usually eaten at 10-11pm. Then more drinking commences.
3. At 7am every morning motor bikes and cares eco between our building and the adjacent one, waking me up.

Regardless I am still having an amazing time. We have been at the University for Gastronomic Sciences for the past two days for orientations. I learned today that the school has a wine bank, with over 80,000 of the best wine from all over the world! We will be getting a tour, and having a five day wine tasting stage at the end of October. Communicating is hard, but our Italian classes start Monday.
Starting Friday there is “cheese” which is a four day festival involving hundreds of samples of local and global cheese, wine, and beer.

Welcome to my journey

The start of this trip has been a breeze. I flew through security at Logan airport in Boston, and got to the gate with about two hours to spare. So, ipod in hand, I zoned out for a few hours until it was time to board. When I got to my seat on the plane I thought to myself, wow, how did I manage to get a seat across from the guy who clearly hasn’t showered for a few weeks? I figured I would just have to suck it up for the 6hr plane ride. To my astonishment, and I rarely ever get this lucky, the passenger who was supposed to sit next to me didn’t show. Imagine that, now I have the window seat to my right all to myself. That definitely makes up for the guy who doesn’t shower.

Then stinky guy asks me if we can switch seats, “no thanks” I reply. It wasn’t till later when I realized he probably wanted to ask if his son could sit next to me in the window seat. Either way, I probably would have said “no.”

The flight was great, for dinner northwest had chicken curry and a free glass of wine, both were actually pretty good. There was a ton of in flight entertainment; I chose to spend my time watching the movie Adventure land. Poor choice by me, it was only mildly funny; like a less funny Juno. Fortunately, an episode of 30rock and some sleep made up for it.

After another two one hour plane rides and about five hours of lay over time, I finally made it to Italy. Having not slept for probably close to a full 30 hours, I am cranky, tired and ready to get out of the airport.

I am living with two other guys from UNH, Matt and Ryan, and we are having a blast. The apartment is amazing, my room is huge, and we even have a maid that comes every day. We are all still going to keep things somewhat clean so we don’t embarrass ourselves, and the rest of America.

Now that we have all been moved in and have been awake for about 40 hours, it’s time to go celebrate with a few drinks. We all went to a local bar and had a whole bunch of awesome local red wine called dolcetto d’alba for 5euro a bottle. Doesn’t get much better than that. More updates about the food too come, that is when I finally eat sometime not on an airplane.