We spent the morning walking around the Sunday market. It was a typical European market but one thing that was interesting were the number of clothing stalls. Every stand seem to be selling the same clothes and they were all purple. It was a bit weird. I mean everything was purple. Must be the in color at the Milan fashion shows this fall. lol! We did pass by a little shop that sold home-made pasta just in case you didn't have time to make it yourself.
Once we left the market we went to the local grocery store with Fiona to pick up a few ingredients for my cooking class later that afternoon. When we were planning our Italy trip I had no intentions of taking a cooking class since I thought I'd learn how to make pasta with Daniella. But that demo left me wanting more. So at the last minute Fiona was able to set up a cooking class with Claudia. It was a perfect day to take a cooking class since it rained most of the afternoon. What was so great about taking a private cooking lesson is you decide what you want to learn how to cook. Of course I wanted to learn how to make my favorite pasta & sauce... gnocchi with quartro formaggi. And since Tagliatelle originated in this region I couldn't leave Bologna without learning how to make it along with the Bolognese sauce. I also wanted to make a ricotta tart like the one we ate at Pian di Fiume.
Claudia & I hit it off right away. She is a total sweetheart! I loved her straight away. She didn't speak any English but she was in the process of learning Spanish online. Claudia loves Spanish & thought it was one of the most beautiful languages. For only taking online language courses her Spanish was really good. I mean it was so good she & I were able to even joke around speaking Spanish. I haven't laughed so much with two people I just met in a long time. It was great fun! And when we got stuck and couldn't communicate Fiona was there to translate.
The first thing I learned about making pasta is you need strong hands. No matter how hard I tried to knead the dough I could not get it to the correct consistency. Of course if I was back home this is where my kitchen aid mixer would come in handy. When S came into Fiona's kitchen and saw me wrestling with the pasta dough he thought it was quite funny so Claudia put his hands to the test and made him work the dough. S did a fairly decent job with the dough. Now Claudia has been making homemade pasta since she was 6 years old so she is an absolute master at making pasta.
I think this photo is so funny. At the time I felt like I was holding this precious little baby. lol!
I really enjoyed making pasta. Believe or not it the process was quite relaxing. I always thought you needed an expensive electronic pasta maker but really all you need is a simple pasta maker like the one in this photo. It was easy to use and my hands didn't get tired considering I made enough pasta for about 20 people.
I made so much Tagliatelle that day! It was crazy but at least I was able to bring some pasta home. Looking at these photos reminds me of how much fun I had that day. We laughed so much!
Here is Claudia showing me how to cut the Gnocchi.
This is some of the pasta we made that day.
Wow, look at those beautiful tomatoes. Yum! The bruschetta was delicious especially with the toasted Tuscan rustic bread.
My cooking lesson started around 3:30pm and we finished after 10:30pm. It was a very late dinner. The food was absolutely fabulous. It's a shame we were the only guests at the time because there was so much food we didn't know what to do with it all. There's only so much pasta we could eat. lol! At the end of the lesson I felt like Claudia & I were more like friends saying goodbye instead of a student finishing her cooking lesson with her instructor. That night I told S how I'd love to make her an apron as my way of saying thank you. Having Claudia show me how to cook some of my favorite Italian dishes was one of my favorite adventures in Italy.
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