It's the Little Things That Matter: Cooking class

I can't believe it's our last day in Italy already! We'd crammed a ton of really amazing stuff into the week, but the time flew!

We're not quite done with cool Spannocchia stuff just yet- we're taking a cooking class!

The first stop was the garden. Carmen is in charge of the garden and the interns helping her here. She's the one responsible for the gorgeously meticulous garden and all the wonderful food and flowers that come out of it!

Next, we went into the kitchen, where we met our fabulous cooking teacher, Loredana and our translator, Daniella. Loredana grew up at Spannocchia and had been the cook here for many years until she retired.

We were given a menu of the meal we were going to prepare, and all the recipes so we could make them again at home. (yeah!)

First order of business: dessert! More specifically- tiramisu!

At times we did more watching than doing, but that was just as helpful, so we could see how it's supposed to be done, and ask lots of questions! (which we did.)

Next: chicken, with an omelet, spinach and fresh sage leaves rolled up in it. And plenty of fresh rosemary sprinkled on top!

Next: stuffed zucchini flowers! These are going to be battered and deep fried.

Finally, bruschetta!

The bruschetta was an appetizer, which we thoroughly enjoyed over Prosecco with Daniella and Lucia.

Ok, snack time over! Now we get to make pasta! These are ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta. Pasta is made much like spaetzle, only with olive oil instead of water. We mixed it right on the counter rather than a bowl, because then we kneaded it like crazy, before running it through the pasta press. We spooned the filling into little evenly spaced dollops, then folded the sheet of pasta over, sealed it with a shot glass, then cut the stuffed ribbon into individual raviolis. (Raviole? Raviolo?)

Everything's doing it's thing on the stove. Fresh pasta doesn't take very long to cook, since you don't have to force water back into it to make it tender.