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.