Tasty Treats: COOKING AND EATING IN ITALY

Steve and I with Massimo Bottura

It has been far too long since I have checked in here, which doesn't mean I haven't been busy or cooking. Steve and I just returned from an amazing culinary vacation. We booked a tour through Zingerman's Deli. If you haven't heard of them, Zingerman's is in Ann Arbor, Michigan (where, coincidentally, Steve went to college). They started as a deli, but have expanded to be much more. They have a very successful mail order business (with special luxury items from all over the world), the Roadhouse (a restaurant with a wood smoker), a bakery, coffee, yogurt, all sorts of things. They also have classes, and we've taken the weekend bread course and I took the week long pastry course. And they have culinary trips. This particular trip was based near Florence, where we stayed at a villa that has a kitchen dedicated to cooking classes, and there was a side-trip to Modena.

Over the course of the 10 days of the tour we sampled artisan pasta, a variety of wines native to the region, parma ham, saw the birth of the parmigiana reggiano, sampled salume and tasted excellent olive oil and basalmic vinegar. We came to understand the exalted place that producing high quality and traditional food has for Italians, and our palettes became educated to some of the differences between mass produced products and those that are produced in small batches following the age-tested ways of achieving high quality. We had a wonderful Italian chef, Piero, giving us lessons, along with a wine professional, Bernardo, who taught us a great deal about wine and food pairing. We were fortunate to have a lively and fun group of people to travel with, and came away ready to try our hand at many of the dishes we learned about. Probably the most important take away that I got personally, is that a good Italian meal takes all day to cook, because the flavors have to be lovingly coaxed out the food. You can make a ragu in an hour with all the same ingredients, but it will never taste like the ones we had at the Cucina.

At the end of the culinary tour we hopped on a train for Bologna. We had managed to score a reservation at Osteria Francescana (Named best restaurant in the world for 2016) in Modena. Getting the reservation involved getting up at 4am on July 1 and getting on-line with two computers and two i-Pads until one of us got into the reservation queue. Since this may be the only opportunity we have to eat there, we had the traditional tasting menu with the wine pairings. Thanks to Bernardo (our wine professional at the Cucina), we were able to appreciate why certain wines were chosen, but there were also some very exotic wines (one made from honey and another made from yuzu). Massimo Bottura's restaurant is all about modernizing Italian cuisine using modern methods and interpretations. The food is beautiful, playful and absolutely delicious. He came out at the end of the meal and spoke to each table, and seemed to delight in the enjoyment we got from his cuisine. I probably won't be attempting any of this dishes, but the flavors will haunt me forever. If you ever have the opportunity, the will and the desire, I highly recommend making the trek to this restaurant.

Below are photos of most of the dishes we devoured:

Amuses Bouche