Slow Food Part 2: Cooking Class in Tuscany

I was so excited to be taking a cooking class with my HB in Tuscany! Before we even left Vancouver, I had visions in my head of what this experience would be like. I imagined that I would be in some rustic farmhouse overlooking the beautiful rolling hills, with castles, cypress trees and wineries surrounding me. I would be in a room full of other students from all over the world who were eager to learn traditional Italian cooking techniques from the instructor. Then suddenly Mario Batali would appear and announce that he would be our instructor for the day! The class would go at a leisurely pace and we would be drinking wine and eating cheese and laughing with Mario, in between making our dishes.  I would become an expert pasta maker, and know how to cure my own meats and make cheese after that class….Well, not quite… the fantasy versus the reality version were a little different. 

We drove from Montalcino, a beautiful Tuscan hill town known for their famous Brunello wine, to San Gimignano where our cooking class was going to be held. 

Our hotel in Montalcino where we stayed for 3 nights

The beautiful view of Montalcino from our hotel

The average driving time to reach our destination was estimated to be about 1.5 hours. We set our GPS to Agriturismo Guardestelle, the place in San Gimignano where our cooking class was going to be held and we were all set to go!

Look at the beautiful scenery surrounding us on our drive there!

The class was scheduled to start at 3 pm. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and the weather was textbook perfect that day and there wasn’t a cloud in the blue sky.  We were chatting away in the car and were in great spirits.    We didn't realize how fast time was going because we were talking and laughing in the car and enjoying the scenery.  Suddenly we noticed a sign that said ‘ Florence ahead’ with an arrow pointing to the left.  Florence is about an hour past San Gimignano and then it hit us.  Our GPS had froze and we didn’t realize it until we drove way past our destination. Yikes!  We quickly turned around and drove back to San Gimignano. It's funny because if this happened in my normal environment back at home, I would be very stressed and frantic.   However, being in Tuscany brought a sense of calm and peace, and being stressed and frantic goes against the philosophy of what the whole Tuscan experience is.  So we just laughed it off and said this experience would just be another funny story to bring back home with us.

When we arrived to Agriturismo Guardestelle, we got out of our car, took a deep breath of fresh air, and stopped for a minute to stare at our surroundings.  I can’t say enough about Guardestelle. It is consistently rated one of the best places to stay in San Gimignano on Trip Advisor and I completely understand why.  We stayed there for 4 nights after Montalcino.

Agriturismo Guardestelle - our cooking class was upstairs by the balcony

Just outside Guardestelle

We then walked into the class and luckily, we were only 20 minutes late.  We introduced ourselves to our 4 other cooking colleagues who were from England and Eastern Canada and the cooking instructor, Nicole.  She was fantastic!

The first thing we made was a nice arrabbiata sauce for the pasta we would be making later. We chopped up locally grown, organic red onions and Italian pancetta. I learned that you can actually eat pancetta raw over there so everyone tried a piece although we hesitated at first.  None of us had tried raw pancetta and it actually tasted pretty good raw.  We then fried up the pancetta and onions on the stove, and added a simple tomato sauce to the mixture along with some Tuscan spices.   Using fresh, locally sourced ingredients, it was all so simple.

Nicole showing me the proper way to chop the pancetta using the ulu knife

The finished arrabbiata sauce

The next dish we made was a leek cream sauce for another pasta dish. We chopped the organic leaks and added cream to the pan. Italian cream tastes different then the cream I am accustomed to back home and it is much thicker in consistency. Right before serving, we would then sprinkle walnuts to the dish.

Italian cream - it almost looks as thick as  Devonshire clotted cream

The finished leek cream sauce 

Making pasta the traditional way was very labor intensive. It was the most challenging part of the cooking class but also the part I enjoyed the most (aside from eating and drinking all that wine).  You had to knead the dough a particular way and had to master the technique to make the pasta properly.  I learned that the proper technique was to push down on the dough ball and away from you with the palm of your hand.   It had to be repeated over and over by folding the dough over on itself in a 90 degree angle, and pushing down and away again until the dough was smooth. This is actually much harder than it appears. It took most of us a while to learn the technique but eventually we all learned to do it the proper way.

The perfect dough ball!

We made 2 types of pasta noodles, pici senesi noodles and tagliatelle all'uovo noodles. This is where I truly understood what Slow Food was! Look at these beautiful pici pasta noodles.  These pici noodles were made with durum wheat semolina and water and each pici noodle was rolled by hand. Yes, each individual noodle was given so much love and attention and was the product of our very own hands.  There was no fancy machine we used to make these noodles so all 6 of us rolled hundreds of noodles with our own 2 hands. The technique is to pinch a little dough and roll it on a flat surface under the palm of your hands, pulling outwards into a spaghetti like shape.

Pici senesi noodles that I rolled myself!

I lost count after I rolled a hundred noodles.

The other pasta noodle we made was a tagliatelle all'uovo noodle which is made with durum wheat flour and egg.   These noodles however, were made using a pasta maker.

By that time, I looked at my watch and 4 hours had gone by. We were having so much fun laughing, talking, chopping, and drinking wine that we only noticed the time from our stomachs growling from hunger.  Nicole had brought in some jams that she made herself, and had cut up a variety of cheese and we took a well needed break.  

Sitting and enjoying the moment with a nice glass of white wine, cheese and homemade jam

That recharged us for our next dish which was our antipasto or starter, Crostone Stacchino and Salsiccia, and also tuna and capers stuffed tomatoes.  

Made with stracchino cheese and Tuscan sausage. Stracchino cheese is a cow's milk cheese from Italy which is eaten very young, and is very soft and creamy.

My favorite dish was by far the pici noodles in arrabbiata sauce.  I devoured my whole dish while HB could only finish half of his.  Our cooking colleague, MK, looked over at HB and started eyeing his unfinished pici dish. He asked him if he was going to finish it.  (Translation: the leftovers in your dish equates to 10 minutes of labor and hard work so it must not go to waste).  After HB said he was stuffed and couldn’t eat anymore,  MK asked if he could finish it because it was so delicious and he polished it off in minutes.

By the time our cooking class and dinner ended, it was already midnight and I have to say that the reality version of this experience was much better than the fantasy version.