After spending the night (or a few hours) in Milan, we took a train to Florence. We decided to walk from the train station to our hotel because it didn’t look very far on the map. Let’s just say this was a bad idea. It ended up being about a thirty minute walk – we each had a big backpack and several shopping bags. By the time we got to the hotel, I was sweating more than I’d ever sweated in my life! The entire back of my shirt was completely soaked. We dropped our bags at the hotel and left for our cooking class – the thing I’d been looking forward to for the entire trip! We took a class from a lady named Stefania, who runs a company called Toscana in Bocaa, where she teaches classes out of her apartment in Florence or her parents’ home in Chianti. This is a picture of me and Stefania.

Here is what the table looked like when we arrived. Stefania had all of the ingredients laid out, and I could not wait to get started! In our class, we learned to make the following items: tomatoes stuffed with a mixture of ricotta, a cream cheese, and herbs; spinach and cheese gnudi; pear and talleggio cheese ravioli; pork tenderloin braised in milk, country potatoes, and an ice cream cake dessert.

Here I am mixing up the dessert. It was just ladyfingers soaked in run and then mixed into ricotta cheese with sugar and chopped dried fruit. You then freeze it for a couple of hours and it turns into something very similar to an ice cream cake.

The other lady in the picture was our classmate - Marilyn from California. She knew a lot about cooking, and it was fun to visit with her. She was definitely a talker!

Our next job was to cook the pears for the ravioli filling with some butter. I’d never cooked on a gas stove before, so this was a new experience!

After this, we got the pork ready to cook. We cut slits in it and stuffed them with sliced garlic, rubbed the whole pork loin in salt and pepper, and tied it up with twine. Then it went into a Dutch oven to be browned. After about twenty minutes of browning, we added milk and let it cook for about an hour.

By this time, we were getting hungry, so we finished up our cheese-stuffed tomato appetizer. TMT even got into the action.

Here is the only picture of both of us from the cooking class. At the bottom of the picture, you can see the platter of our tomatoes. These were so good, due mostly to the fact that Stefania’s dad grew the tomatoes himself. In fact, that is one thing that really impressed me about this class. Stefania got all of the food at the local market, and it was all so fresh. Very different from what we can get in the produce department at Wal-Mart! I mean I love Wal-Mart, but there are times when I would just like to be able to get a carrot that looks like it came out of the ground that same day!

Finally, we were ready for the part of the class I’d been anxiously awaiting – learning to make fresh pasta. I got more compliments on my skills here - for those of you who know me, you know that this made my day! I loved making the pasta and filling the ravioli.

The finished products!

This is gnudi - basically the inside of a cheese and spinach ravioli cooked without the noodle. Gnudi means naked, so these are “naked ravioli.” This was not my fave, but it is a good way to eat your spinach!

Here is the masterpiece of the mean – the pear ravioli. My friend Kristi had eaten this mean when she was in Tuscany earlier in the summer and raved about it, so I requested that Stefania teach us to make it. Kristi, Erin P., and I made it once I got back, and she says it’s just like she remembers.

This was our secondi or second course – pork loin and potatoes. I didn’t get any pictures of us making the potatoes, but they were really good. They had carrots, celery, onion, hot peppers, and tomatoes. All of the veggies came together to make a little sauce for the potatoes. The pork was also excellent. I usually don’t like pork that much, but this was the moistest pork I’ve ever eaten. I’ve also made this since I’ve been home, and it was just as easy to recreate in America as it was to make in Italy!

Despite eating a huge lunch, I could not pass up gelato. I’d heard that Florence had the best gelato, and we went to Vivoli, which was supposedly the best in Florence – so the best of the best! It was pretty good! And by the way, although I’m double-fisting the gelato in this picture, I didn’t actually eat both of them. Once was TMT’s; the store was super crowded and TMT doesn’t do well in tight spaces. I let him wait outside and I just brought his gelato to him.

Before dinner we did a little shopping at the market. We had not bought many of the gifts we needed to bring back and had only two days left in Rome, so I was feeling the pressure to start taking care of gifts. Most of what was for sale in the market was just junk! I did get a new shawl to replace the one I lost in our move from one train car to another during our ride from Villefranche to Milan.

We ate dinner at Trattoria ZaZa, which I first visited eight years ago with my best friend Kayla. I’ve recommended this to several people, and every one loves it. It was just as good as I remembered. My meal this night was comment and picture worthy because it had a truffle sauce. I had never had anything with truffles before, but had heard they are wonderful, so I tried the fettuccine with truffle sauce. It was good, but not as spectacular as I expected.

Our last stop in Florence before heading back to our hotel for the night was Il Porcino. We have a replica of this at the U of A, and there is also one in Kansas City. We may have missed two football games while we were on vacation, but we kept the Razorback spirit alive in Florence!