Culinary Genius and Tandemeisti

The three rules my parents sent me to Italy with were an approximation of the following:
1. Come back.
2. Don't bring home anything that breathes (men or animals).
3. Bring Italian recipes when you come.

To be honest, I didn't listen, so I don't know if those were the rules. I do know I was asked to bring back recipes, but as the overachiever I am, I will additionally be bringing back a culinary genius - me. It might be overstating it, since I am 140% dependent on Angelica's culinary genius, recipes and tips, but my apartment had our first cooking class on Wednesday and it went wonderfully. Everything is so easy to heat up, or defrost in America, and cooking takes so much time, that we don't (well, I don't) cook like they do here. It was really satisfying to sit down to eat a meal that you are entirely responsible for! Mom, Dad, this doesn't mean I want to cook for the fam all the time when I'm home.

Angelica taught us how to make a very basic sauce (tomatoes, carrots, garlic, and celery), and a dish from Amatrice (a town near Rome) called Spaghetti "All'Amatriciana" (the sauce had tomatoes, bacon, onion, and chili). We also made a Sicilian Salad, or Orange Salad, and finally we tasted a type of cheese called Pecorino (both fresh and aged). But this wasn't a quick cooking class.

The most domestic I think I've ever looked.

Sicilian Salad - you can also add red cabbage.

Local vino rosso.

We met at 18.30. We made both sauces -- completely from scratch. We made the salad. We set up the table. We (over)cooked the pasta (Italians eat pasta slightly undercooked, but it was perfect for our uncultured American tastes). We listened to music. We steamed up the windows in the small kitchen. We took furious notes at all the little things Angelica didn't think was worth putting on our recipe handout (cover the pan completely when boiling the onion pieces so there's no evaporation, don't cover completely when boiling the sauce once the tomatoes are in the pan, so the excess water can evaporate). And finally, around 20.30, we sat down to eat and drink our two bottles of red wine (which stained my teeth purple but is growing on me). We didn't get back to our apartment until about eleven. It was so. freaking. delicious. Unbelievably so. Even the Sicilian Salad, which I didn't think I would like, was amazing. And the cheese! It's a thing here to put a little bit of honey on the aged cheese, which, since I love cheese and honey, may just be my new snack of choice.

Cheese!

Meal time!

Sorry to keep posting about food. But here, it's kind of a big deal.


And today, I had my first official meeting with my Tandem Partner, Guondolina (Gwendolina). The Tandem Project makes us Tandemeisti (which is a made up word, don't google translate it), and pairs us with an Italian student, so both of us can practice our language skills and trade information about other cultures; we spend two hours a week together. We met for a cappuccino and a pastry this afternoon (Nutella pastry. This country is brilliant). We chatted about all sorts of things: education systems, religion in our countries (shout out to Maritza Mestre and Prof. Shaddox, totally used everything from that class), fashion (apparently Italian communist boys have a specific, unique style and never wear white pants), stereotypes (they think of Americans as free-wheeling, fun loving, blonde surfer types, think the French are rude, and the British are too proper), and about how in America, dogs don't get to just come in a sit down by their owner (sans leash) in a café, as was happening a few tables over. Then, she took me on a tour of her university building. It was really interesting, and will definitely add a lot to my experience here. Plus, I may be able to finally meet some real Italians my age!