Hi again! :)

This week was a surprisingly fun week! The school had organized for all of the fashion students to partake in a cooking class about an hour outside of Florence in Lucca at a small villa that is a Bed and Breakfast. Monday was my day to attend, along with twenty of my other classmates. The place in Lucca was beautiful! I felt like I was at the place that they show on the front of the Olive Garden menu's! Haha :) After learning a little about the different Italian herbs and cheeses they put us to work on making our meal. All of the ingredients used in the meal are home grown on the B&B's land or produced through their animals. One of the special ingredients we had the opportunity to use was fresh ricotta cheese. Apparently, the goat had produced the milk for it the morning of the same day we were there. We were all given aprons to wear and tasting spoons to use to taste our Italian creations along the way...

The first dish we worked on was the dessert! Tiramisu! We all took turns cracking eggs and beating the mixture. We used small bowls to make our own.

Next, we began on our first course dishes. We started by cutting the eggplant, which we eventually grilled and spread chopped tomato over. After cutting the eggplant we began working on the stuffed zucchini flowers. We used the fresh ricotta cheese, parmesan, salt and pepper as the filling. After placing them in a pan we drizzled it with Olive oil and once again topped it with chopped tomatoes and basil. (Again, all of which were from their garden!) The last first course dish we helped prepare was a salad served in a parmesan bowl. We let the chefs make the salad while we each made our own cheese bowl. All we did was take a heaping spoonful of parmesan cheese, place it in the oven, and form it in the shape of a bowl after it was pulled out of the oven and before it became to cool and hard. SO EASY! :)

One of the even easier things we made served as a snack for us as we finished preparing the rest of the meal. It was fried sage chips. All we did was take sage leaves, dip them in a beer batter, and put them in a pan with oil. I never thought I would enjoy eating fried leaves but they were very delicious!

On to the main dishes, we first started making the veal wrapped asparagus. **Everyone relax-- our instructor insured us that veal is not treated the same way in Italy as it is in the US. She told us that this little lamb's feet did in fact touch the ground and it had a nice little life running around in a pasture before it ended up on our table! :) ** Inside the veal wrap was a piece of asparagus along with a slice of cheese and a sage leaf. We left it up to the real cooks to actually do the cooking of the meet. Finally, the last dish we made was homemade Gnocchi with a cheese sauce. Before beginning to make the Gnocchi, our instructor asked if any of us had made homemade pasta before... I was the only one in our group who had! (Thanks Aunt Rosaria for making me look good! haha!) We made the Gnocchi from potatoes that had been boiled and created them into the shape that we all know and love. The cooks took care of cheese sauce.

After a short break, we set the table to prepare to eat what we had just previously made. I was so surprised with how much i LOVED every dish we made. All of it was outstanding, and I think it probably tasted a little better due to the fact that we were aware that we made it all ourselves! The Gnocchi was probably my favorite dish up until the dessert, which was "the best I've ever had"! (My father's favorite phrase when we are out to eat!) But really, it was the best I've ever had! It was truly a great experience and really made me feel like I was experiencing the kind of Italy I had dreamed about. We also had an opportunity at dinner to get to know the director of our program a little better. She apologized to us for not being able to serve us wine and told us to thank the KSU Board of Directors for that! Haha. With wine or without it, the evening was still wonderful. Lucky for all of you, they are giving us copies of the recipes for all of the dishes we made. Maybe, if you're lucky, I will make some of the things once I'm home! If anyone would like a copy of the recipes just let me know along with your email address and I will send them to you!

I hope all is well back home and everyone survived the "Ohio Hurricane" and the "USC vs. OSU disaster". I take for granted that everyone has their power back on. It is finally starting to cool off a little here. It had been in the 90's since I've been here but has become much cooler in the morning and evening hours. This weekend will be another weekend spent in Florence. Jill and I already have reservations to take a bus to some FABULOUS outlets about an hour away from Florence. Prada, Gucci, Burberry, Fendi... maybe I will be buying some Christmas presents?? Miss you all very much and lots of love! <3

Ciao for now,

Carrie :)