Our Grand Tour of Europe

I was equally excited about the cooking class, a prize I won in a Slow Travel contest last summer. I entered the contest by submitting a couple of trip reports to the website. Various travel-related businesses had donated prizes, some of which were weeklong accommodations in Europe. The prize drawing took place while we were staying in the Cotswolds last July, and my name was one of the first ten drawn. I could have selected one of the accommodation prizes, but since the arrangements for our trip were already set and I didn’t know what we would want to do travel-wise after we returned home, I decided to select a prize that would be an enhancement to our long trip… something we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. The cooking class with Diva (the Slow Travel name of Judy Witts Francini, whose company is named “Divina Cucina”) was an easy choice for me, the opportunity to learn how to cook some real Italian food and get to eat it too. Judy and I had corresponded over the past year about the arrangements for my class. Although my prize was for two people, she invited our third family member to participate at no extra cost. And when we found out that Libbie would be able to come up to Florence for the day, she made it possible for Libbie to be part of our class too.

And now the long-awaited day was finally here…

The train arrived and we looked eagerly down the platform for our first glimpse of Libbie. Suddenly there she was beside us. She recognized us from our photos on the internet even before she saw Kelly’s sign. We hugged and chattered like old friends. Libbie had taken the train from Chiusi in southern Tuscany, the town where we left our car when we took the train up to Florence for our four-day stay here. Her husband George decided to take a day off and stayed at their rental in Cetona. We walked through the crowds of tourists and street sellers around the station and made our way to Borgo San Lorenzo, the busy pedestrian street where our apartment in Florence is located. We had coffee and talked in a nearby coffee shop. It was so interesting to finally meet the friend I had corresponded with for two years, and we had lots of stories to share about our travels. Libbie and George had just completed a three-month stay in Ireland. She even had a present for Kelly—an Irish hedgehog figurine for her collection.

Before our class we took Libbie up the four flights of stairs to our compact apartment. The two bedrooms are lofts in the steep part of the roof, above our living room and kitchen areas. Our windows are high above the busy shopping street with a view of the cathedral dome just a few blocks away. We showed Libbie our little place, and she snapped a few photos. In the course of our travels, she and I have both become experts on self-catering rentals. I’m happy with this rental I found in Florence… convenient and much better (and economical) than a hotel room for our four day visit.

Then it was time to head to our class. Judy’s “cooking studio” is only a ten-minute walk from our apartment, just beyond the San Lorenzo street market and the big indoor Mercato Centrale food market. We had made a little exploratory trip the day before, just to be sure we could find the address…. plus it gave Kelly and I another chance to browse in the San Lorenzo market that sprawls on several streets around the austere-looking San Lorenzo church, once the parish church of the famous Medici family. The market has a couple hundred stalls that are open most of the day… selling blue jeans, scarves, leather purses and belts, jewelry, t-shirts, ceramics, tapestries, paper products, artwork and more. Nearby the illegal street sellers set up their little cardboard stands. They’re selling sunglasses, watches, and bracelets… ready to close up shop and drift into the crowd if a “carabineri” should approach.

I was also looking forward to meeting Judy, who has been a helpful resource on Slow Travel too. Originally from the Bay Area, she married a native Florentine and has lived in or near Florence for over 20 years. She told us that she and her husband now live in the countryside about an hour from Florence. She travels into the city a few days a week to do her cooking classes and has a little bedroom in her studio so she can stay overnight. She was very much like her internet persona: confident and easygoing with a big smile and a great sense of humor.

The studio consisted mainly of a big kitchen and an adjoining big dining room—a place to cook and then a place to enjoy the food. Judy, Charley, Kelly, Libbie and I sat around the big dining table to get acquainted and await the arrival of our other classmates. Each class member got a special “Divina Cucina” apron and cookbook of Judy’s favorite Tuscan recipes. Our family shared two cookbooks. Kelly was thrilled to have her own cookbook of Diva’s recipes. She was as excited about being with Libbie and going to cooking school as I was.

In addition to our group of four, there were three other people in our class: an Asian-American woman (Shannon) and her daughter (Alex) from the Bay Area and a woman named Terry from Sleepy Hollow, Illinois, near Chicago. Alex is a bright young woman who is spending a college semester in Siena; her mother has joined her near the end of the term. Shannon said she was originally from China. Terry is traveling in Italy with her husband and college-aged son. Today is her birthday, and the cooking class was her birthday present. Her husband and son dropped her off and headed out to see more of Florence. We had a very compatible group for our day of cooking.

Once the group had assembled, Judy gathered us all in the kitchen and talked about our plan for the day. We would shop at the market, cook a meal together, and then eat our meal. She and her husband would handle the cleanup after we left, which eliminated my least-favorite part of cooking. I liked the fact there wasn’t a pre-planned menu and that Judy hadn’t already bought everything for our group. In fact, she hadn’t bought anything that I could see except for a couple bottles of water.

Judy asked if there was anything anyone really wanted to cook today. I said homemade pasta. Someone mentioned artichokes. Kelly asked about fried zucchini and then I raised the possibility of courgette flowers. Someone else suggested steaks. She also asked if there were any foods anyone was allergic to or had a problem eating. A few people mentioned allergies and dislikes. I said that Kelly didn’t eat fish. Based on all this input, Judy suggested a couple of possible ideas for our menu. She said we’d also look to see if there was anything else that looked great at the market today. She picked up her big market basket, and off we all went.

The Mercato Centrale is in a big warehouse-type building with glass windows, spread out over two floors. We only went on the lower floor, which was made up of lots of individual open shops. I had expected something like the big outdoor markets we’d loved in Provence or maybe like the big covered market in Barcelona… packed with locals and tourists, but there really weren’t many shoppers on the lower floor. The shops were somewhat upscale and absolutely beautiful, everything arranged just so: fresh meat and poultry, sausages and other cured meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, cheese, wine, olive oil, dried pastas and herb mixes, and fresh flowers. Huge hams and braids of garlic hung above many of the shops.

I asked Judy who shopped at this market… where were the throngs of people? It seemed like most of the other shoppers were tourists like us. I thought maybe the restaurant chefs shopped here each morning. Judy said most of the customers on the lower level are the well-to-do people of Florence, because the produce and products are the very best in the city… and expensive too. Occasionally the chefs from the restaurants come to personally inspect the food or see what might be new, but normally they call to place orders and the shops deliver everything to the restaurants in the afternoon. She said the stands on the upper level were less expensive and exclusive, but we never went upstairs.

We followed Judy through the market like little chicks following our mother hen. We passed a lot of meat sellers, and Judy stopped several times to tell us about the food. The meat stands displayed their wares in a way we’re not used to in America, several featuring little pig heads with eyes wide open up above their little pink snouts. Some of the rabbits and birds were displayed with their heads, as we had seen in France. I think the heads are left on so the customer knows they’re getting the real thing. Kelly tried not to look at the little pig heads. Judy pointed out a tripe stand. This specialty butcher sells a type of meat very popular in Florence… the lining of the first stomach of a cow. Fortunately it wasn’t on our menu and we didn’t inspect his stand closely.

Most of our time in the market was spent at two stands right across from one another, and Judy was obviously a VIP customer. They seemed to be expecting us, so I’m sure she brings all her classes there. The first shop (run by the Conti family) sold beautiful fruits and vegetables, wine, olive oils, and various other specialty items from Tuscany. Several of the family members worked with our group. We tasted several balsamic vinegars of different ages…. unlike any vinegar I’ve ever tasted and more like a thick and very flavorful dressing. The balsamic vinegar tasted especially good on strawberries, a combination I never would have imagined. One of the balsamic vinegars we tasted was 30 years old… and very expensive. There was one balsamic that was 100 years old, but we weren’t offered a taste of that one. We also tasted olive oils and a red pepper jelly made using Judy’s personal recipe. We tasted the red pepper jelly on bits of cheese.

We were at this stand for almost 45 minutes… looking, learning, tasting, and finally buying. Everyone in the class did some personal shopping of things to take home. Our family bought some dried fruits for Kelly, a small glass bottle of one of the balsamic oils (not the most expensive one), some of Judy’s red pepper jelly, and a bag of colorful dried pasta. We would have bought much more if we had an easy way to get everything home. Meanwhile Judy also bought several ingredients for our meal… luscious strawberries, perfectly ripe tomatoes, bright yellow courgette blossoms, artichokes, zucchini, pears, and big green beans. She rattled off her order in Italian and the young man and woman at the stand selected the very best produce for her, packing everything away in bags that they held for us while we finished our shopping.

Then we went across the aisle to a big cheese shop. Judy said this was the best cheese seller in all of Florence because they sold the high-quality cheese from several countries. I saw some of the French cheeses I was familiar with. We tasted several different cheeses, trying to distinguish the different flavors due to aging. Judy bought some four year old parmesan (a cheese she said she absolutely loves), a two-day-old cheese swimming in some sort of liquid, ricotta cheese, mascarpone cheese, and a very popular Tuscan cheese made from sheep’s milk called pecorino. She even bought Kelly a little slab of English cheddar.

We stopped at a butcher’s stand for thinly sliced beef steaks and then at a bakery for some bread and finally a little grocery stand for various other things. Judy handled these transactions quickly while the rest of us gawked at all the wonderful food on display. We traced our way through the market back to the first stand and retrieved our packages. We had done most of our shopping there. Everyone was carrying several bags as we left the big market, once again trailing after Judy.

On the way back to Judy’s place, we stopped in a busy little bar with a local clientele. We had a quick snack of wine and sandwiches. Shannon and Alex, the mother and daughter, were adventurous and ate tripe sandwiches. Judy bought several bottles of wine and champagne—more bags to carry. She seemed to know several people at the bar. She also knew many of the sellers outside in the San Lorenzo street market. As we passed by his stand, one man selling leather coats told us he’d give us a 50% discount because we were with Judy.

At 1:30 we were back in the big kitchen ready to start our cooking. We helped Judy unload all our bags, and she brought out pretty ceramic bowls and platters to display all our beautiful purchases on the big kitchen island—a photo opportunity before we began our work. Charley, Kelly and I also posed for photos carrying a giant wheel of parmegiano reggiano cheese, acting as if it was terribly heavy. Fortunately it wasn’t real!

Judy put out some cheese and bread on the dining table so we could snack while we worked, and she also opened the champagne. The two-day-old cheese was delicious, especially smeared on the fresh Tuscan bread. (Traditional Tuscan bread is made without salt and isn’t good at all without something on it.) Kelly loved the flat focaccia bread. We all put on our Divina Cucina aprons and waited expectantly around the big island in Judy’s kitchen.

We were preparing a traditional four-course Tuscan meal, Judy said. She told us our menu and we all obediently wrote it down in the back of our cookbooks:

Antipasto: Fritto Misto (stuffed zucchini blossoms, fried zucchini and artichokes), Burrata cheese with olive oil

Primo piatto: Pear and pecorino ravioli

Secondo piatto: Beef bruschetta (fried steaks with tomatoes, garlic and basil), Germana’s green beans

Dolce: Strawberry tiramisu

I really enjoy cooking and own lots of cookbooks, but I haven’t taken a formal cooking class since home economics in the eighth grade. Back then I learned how to make macaroni and cheese, sloppy joes and chocolate pudding. Now here I was in Florence, Italy, learning how to make fresh pasta.

Many adult cooking classes are primarily demonstrations where the class (usually larger than our group of seven) watches the teacher cook the meal. Judy’s class was different—we all got involved in the cooking and we all had a chance to help with each of the dishes. We were soon busy with knives and whisks and abandoned our note-taking.

Kelly was intently involved in the whole process, eager to learn how to cook. She likes being with adults in a situation like this. Charley became less engaged when we started working over the stove and the hot oil; I think at the end the kitchen just got too hot for him, but he definitely didn’t have a problem spending the day with seven women!

We started our cooking in the reverse order of our meal and began by preparing a strawberry tiramisu, a variation of the traditional Italian dish that usually involves coffee. Several of us chopped up strawberries, which Judy covered with sugar to bring out the juices. Shannon volunteered to separate the eggs. Terry was really good at using a whisk to beat the yolks and sugar; apparently she has a lot of experience making pastry. Charley also dazzled the group with his whisking skills. Judy folded in the mascarpone cheese while Terry beat the egg whites. Libbie and I laid ladyfinger cookies along the bottom of the pan, and we poured the strawberry mixture over the cookies. Kelly did the final garnishing, carefully shaking cocoa powder to completely cover the top of the frothy dessert.

As we worked together to prepare each of the dishes, Judy answered our questions and shared information about Florence, Tuscany, Tuscan cooking and cooking in general. We drank our champagne and the afternoon passed all too quickly.

We cut up the flat green beans, which Judy started cooking in a big pot with some olive oil, garlic, onion, herbs and tomatoes. This recipe was from the older Signora Conti, who we had met at the market. Then we moved onto the courgette blossoms. We learned that some blossoms are male and some are female. We reached into the tender yellow blossoms to remove the male and female parts and then stuffed them with a ricotta cheese mixture. We also prepared the zucchini and artichokes for frying. Judy showed us how to remove the outer leaves and trim the artichokes—they were smaller and easier to work with than the big artichokes we’re used to at home.

Kelly and I were especially looking forward to making fresh pasta. Our pasta dish was ravioli stuffed with pecorino cheese and pears, another combination I never would have imagined. Judy carefully weighed the flour for the dough and then arranged the flour in a “volcano” on the wooden island. She broke two eggs in the crater of the flour and showed us how to slowly mix the eggs into the flour with a fork. We each took a turn stirring until the eggs were absorbed and we had a dough. The dough sat for a while under a towel while we cut up the pears and cheese for the filling. Charley and Kelly kneaded the dough. Judy attached a pasta machine to the end of the table, and then Kelly worked with Judy to pull the pasta through the little machine several times, changing the machine setting every few passes to make the dough thinner and longer. We ended up with two very long piece of pasta dough that we cut into squares. We all helped stuff and form the big raviolis.

Next we made the batter for the fried vegetables, and dipped the courgette blossoms, zucchini sticks, and artichoke hearts into the batter. Our last preparation involved the beef steaks. Some class members chopped the tomatoes that would top the cooked meat. Others dipped the thinly sliced steaks into flour, egg and breadcrumbs. I was impressed that Kelly volunteered to help with the beef. She usually doesn’t want anything to do with raw meat.

At this point, everything was assembled and we were ready to really cook. We boiled the big ravioli in water for just three minutes, carefully removing them from the pot. Judy poured a stringy sauce made with butter and the wonderful parmesan cheese over the ravioli. We fried the battered zucchini blossoms, zucchini sticks and artichokes, and then we fried the breaded steaks. As if by magic, the beans—which had been simmering away this entire time—were ready at the same time as the rest of our meal. A few class members got out plates, silverware, glasses and napkins, and we were ready to eat!

Terry’s husband and son arrived to join us for our meal and the young man who was driving Shannon and Alex back to Siena also came just in time to fill his plate. They were all complimentary of our day’s work. We opened red and white wine and sat around Judy’s big table and relaxed over our bountiful meal. Most of us had seconds… Charley and I may even have had thirds. Everything was absolutely wonderful. The steak was especially good with a bit of the balsamic vinegar. The grand finale was the strawberry tiramisu. I had almost forgotten that it was tucked away in the refrigerator. The wine flowed as we ate, and we enjoyed the social time with the rest of the group.

I couldn’t believe it was already 5 o’clock. Libbie had to catch her train back to Chiusi in southern Tuscany. We said goodbye to Judy and our classmates and walked Libbie to the train station. It seemed like there was still so much to talk about. We decided to try to connect again at the end of the week when our family is down in southern Tuscany too.

We all liked Libbie a lot. “We’d really like to meet your husband,” Kelly told her. We hugged in front of the big Santa Maria Novella church and waved goodbye as Libbie crossed the street to the station. She recommended we come back and visit the church.

For me, this was one of our best days in Italy, maybe even one of the Top Ten days of our whole trip. The three of us have been traveling as sightseers in Italy for almost five weeks, visiting Lake Como, Venice, Rome, the Amalfi Coast and now Florence. The natural beauty, history, art and architecture of this ancient country are truly amazing, and at times I’ve found myself almost overwhelmed by it all. Until today, our interactions with other people have been mostly limited to brief conversations with the landlords of our rental places or other English-speaking tourists at the next table in a restaurant. But on this day we were active participants… learning something new, having fun, and engaging with other people for several hours. I loved the informal and open style of our day… our visit to the market with Judy as our guide, learning to cook Tuscan-style in her friendly kitchen, drinking the champagne and wine, eating our wonderful meal, and especially sharing the experience with Charley, Kelly and Libbie. On top of all this, the experience was an unexpected opportunity… a gift, a prize, a freebee, an absolutely wonderful treat for our family… thanks to Judy and Slow Travel.

We’ve already realized that after 14 months in Europe, our way of cooking and eating will never be the same. Some new foods got added to our list today: balsamic vinegar, homemade pasta, pecorino cheese, courgette blossoms, and strawberry tiramisu. We definitely plan to buy a pasta machine and start making our own fresh pasta. And we’re looking forward to fixing a wonderful Tuscan meal for a special group of friends when we get home.