Thursday, June 24, 2010

Sorry for the confusion. This is the post from yesterday. I had trouble connecting to the internet the first few days and it has come to my blog by way of me in bits and pieces. Maybe by the end of the trip I will have mastered this "blog thing". My photos are not loading to the blog through my laptop connection by way of Mimma's computer so that will have to be later.
Soooooo here is a little of my "yesterday"......

A day of rest. Guess the travel has caught up with me today and although we are free all day from cooking school activities and you would think I would drive somewhere to visit/tour/shop/ instead I stayed the day in my room. A little bit of sitting outside on the terrace and a little walk to the pool for photos but really just resting until late afternoon when I got in my Strawberry car and headed to an evening of cooking!

This afternoon we gathered at Mimma's sister's house. Franca has a lovely villa and a large vineyard that she calls small. Because I arrived early, I was able to take a few photos before we started to cook. The grounds are beautiful with rosemary shrubs that are huge landscape bushes in Italy. Franca had so many rose bushes I lost count and so much lavender and rosemary no one could keep count if they tried. Along the rock wall below their deck was Jasmine in full bloom and Mock Orange below that. So to stand on her deck in the late afternoon sunshine and breath deeply was just a memory in my mind forever.
As you look out over the vineyard the tops of the lush grape vines show lots of new growth so the color of the vine near the ground is rich deep green graduating to the top where it is chartreuse green. Franca says this new growth will soon be cut off to allow for more of the nutrients to go to the grapes instead of the vine. This trimming of the grape vines is done by hand.
Franca welcomed us into her cooking kitchen and we adorned our Cooking School aprons. We made an appetizer that I will have to look up the name but it was very good with red and yellow peppers prosciutto etc etc. Also we made chicken in wine sauce with carrot souffle and we also made egg plant lasagna with béchamel sauce.
For dessert we made GELATO. Vanilla with Lemon Cello sauce.

Wine was served from Franca's stock of her vineyard from table wine to dessert wine to the wine we cooked with in the chicken and the lemon sauce. Wine Wine Wine
Franca signed one of her Vineyard bottles for my bottle tree. I hope it makes it back in one piece inside my luggage.

Tomorrow is an early morning with a trip with the Tuscan Momma's as we drive to the market in Montevarchi, Italy.

Check back later for reallllllll photos of me cooking!

Ciao
Kathy

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