# Campari & Soda: 1, # Gelati: 1
I had two lots of classes today. Italian class in the morning then my cooking class at Ca' Bianca in the afternoon.
Today has been the coldest day since I arrived. It was 0C when I woke up and only managed to make it to all of 11C by the middle of the day. However, tomorrow will be positively balmy. The predicted top is 15C. Fortunately, someone has seen sense and turned the boiler on in my apartment building so the radiators are working.
The number of students in my class has dropped to 8, as the young German man, Max, has moved to a more advanced class. I'm dithering about whether to ask about doing the same. I'm finding the grammar we are studying to be quite straightforward as it is mostly revision for me. However, my conversation skills (and therefore my vocabulary) as still quite poor so perhaps this is the right class for me.
We spent the first hour going over our homework. There were only 9 sentences which we had to complete. We were given the verb to use, we just had to conjugate it correctly in the conditional tense. It took us this long because we kept getting horribly side tracked. Once on a discussion on some special sort of fish stew that is common in San Francisco and how its name is a variation on a dialect word for such a dish. Then later on we got to talking about panettone and columba and what sort of shops would and would not be open on Easter Sunday. However, we did this all in Italian so even if we didn't learn much grammar, we were still learning.
During the coffee break at the bar I joined a group of students from a more advanced class. However, I went to the bar with Kim who is a beginner, so while we all had a pleasant chat, we still did it all in English. I do enjoy Kim's company so perhaps I'll just need to give up trying to do better.
After the break, we were each given three words. We had to pretend to be fortune tellers and invent a fortune that used those words. There were a lot of tall, dark, handsome strangers and trips over the water. However, we again got massively derailed. It turns out Luigi, who is from Brooklyn, has moved to Italy to live. He is early 60s and has been in trucking all his life. He has started up a trucking school in Catania in Sicily. He is also organising a union of truck drivers there, as there are lot of illegal immigrants who are taking over the drivers' jobs and are willing to work for much lower wages. He is organising strikes. We were all more than a little boggled. He is going to have to be very careful about who he involves in the running of his union if he wants to have a long & pleasant retirement in Sicily.
After class I had a quick lunch of two slices of pieces from a pizza by the slice place near my apartment. One piece was with sausage and gorgonzola and was slightly sweet - not very nice. The other was a very decent margherita. For dessert I had a gelati from Cremeria Santo Stefano. This was better than yesterday but I still prefer Il Gelaturo.
At 2:30pm we were picked up and taken to our cooking class in the hills outside Bologna. There were 3 of us from the Academya Lingua - myself, Paulo and Giovanni. Paulo is Swiss and Giovanni is German. I suspect their names are actually Paul and Johann. There was also a couple who had signed up via Tripadvisor. I was told their names but have promptly forgotten. She was Armenian and he was Swedish but they live in Dusseldorf. Our common language was English, so everyone (besides me) was at least bilingual. Sigh.
The cooking school is run by a mother and daughter pair - Elisabetta and Flavia. Mamma only speaks Italian, so Flavia was our interpreter when necessary. They picked us up in a people mover, with Mamma driving. Mamma drives with verve and enthusiam and Flavia helps by providing shrieks and offering the occasional piece of advice from the back seat. The views from their place in the hills are lovely, although the drive up the narrow road to their villa was an interesting experience.
They don't just have dogs, plural, they have 6 dogs ranging in size from terriers to golden retrievers. They are all rescue dogs who could all benefit from more training. Although, only the golden retriever jumped up on anyone and only when first meeting us. They did spend the whole time we were there running around and going in and out of the house. They know how to open the kitchen door, so we were continually dealing with sudden cold drafts. Nice animals but I can see why some people might be less than thrilled to be having a cooking class with them around. There were also two cats on the premises, but the cats had sensibly made themselves scarce so I didn't set eyes on them.
First of all we watched Mamma making a classic ragu. I have to confess I was underwhelmed by her version. She used a ridiculous amount of oil. There was a good centimetre of it floating on the top of the ragu when it was finished. She also used sunflower oil which is basically tasteless. If you are going to use that much oil, at least use olive oil so it has some flavour. As it was spring, she made the ragu just with milk rather than wine first and then milk. It did make it lighter in flavour but also a bit bland. I personally preferred the ragu at La Rustica Pizzeria where I had dinner on my first night.
We then made our own pasta - tagliatelle. Each of us made our own dough. While this was resting we made pastry for our dessert. We each made out own tart. We had the choice of topping the pastry with either a chocolate cream or jam. I opted for chocolate cream but in hindsight jam would have been better. Mamma made the chocolate cream with milk, cocoa, sugar and cornflour. Not as much chocolate and more sugar than I prefer. We used most of the pastry for the base but used some to decorate the top. This is Paolo's. I don't have his artistic flair.
We put the tarts on to cook and paused for a drink. We then rolled out our pasta, which takes a good long while. There is a knack to it, which Mamma has, but we didn't. Finally we cut it into thin strips before cooking it.
The pasta was delicious - very light, but the ragu was a bit bland. We then each had a small piece of our tarts. The pastry was more like a short biscuit than pastry but tasty. We each got to take our tarts home with us. This was OK for me as I have an apartment with a fridge, but the visiting couple are staying in a hotel. While the cooking class was fun I don't think the menu was very well planned.
After dinner Mamma drove us all back into Bologna, dropping us off at a completely different spot. I managed to find my way home without getting lost. I'm beginning to get my bearings. I rushed home as I had homework to do before class tomorrow.
Now do I take my tart into class tomorrow to share or do I keep it all for myself?
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