A:

Monday: Today we made pasta and tiramisu and had a lovely evening with Elisabetta and Umberto.

M:

The day delivered the promised rain, so it was a good day to plan to be largely indoors. My first task was to get hold of a box to send some things home in - partly for ease of handling, and partly to leave some space for any purchases here or in Verona or Vietnam. I was at the post office just before 0815, in time to see the first customers and the resident Romany beggar waiting outside until the doors were opened. It reminded me of Ralph and Sam the sheepdog and the wolf in Bugs Bunny, waiting to clock on at the start of the day! I got the box with no difficulty. The real challenge will be navigating the process for sending it on its way. We managed to get 7kg of clothing and other odds and ends into it with no trouble - DVDs we have bought, course notes, souvenirs and clothing.

A:

Our cooking class with "FlorenceTown" began outside the office of this tour organisation (they also run bike tours but not at this time of year) at 10 am with roll call and we were off to the San Lorenzo fruit and vegetable markets on foot in the rain with chef Giovanni and his assistant Andrea. There we were treated to a demonstration and tasting of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and sun dried tomatoes by a blue - haired girl who really knew her stuff. (M: With the deep black clothing, , heavy eyeliner and black nail polish, I kept having visions of her hopping on her broomstick and flying off. Despite that we learned a great deal about the manufacture and tastes of both balsamic vinegar and olive oil).

There were thirteen in our group - four Aussies, two guys from the USA and a mother and daughter from the same place, a family of four from South Africa who seemed to particularly enjoy the whole day laughing and joking, and a girl from Brazil. While in the markets our guides were happy to chat about food and answer our questions as we wandered around and various items were purchased for the day's activities. They had previously asked about food allergies and two of us don't eat red meat so this was no problem.

After this we walked to the restaurant nearby and we all donned aprons while our guides put on their uniforms and busied themselves with the food preparation. We then spent a really wonderful few hours (from 10am assembly to 3 pm in total) preparing tiramisu, vegetarian pasta sauce, meat pasta sauce, tagliatelle, and bruschetta and then were rewarded for our efforts by eating the lot, and then Giovanni gave us each a certificate and said we had passed. There was a lovely feeling in the group and we all cheered and clapped as people got up to receive their certificate.

As I type this on 13.12.11, we have the news on the TV and have seen an item where a gunman shot and killed two Senegalese stallholders at a suburban market in Florence and then shot a couple more at the San Lorenzo markets here in the centre before he turned the gun on himself. These are the markets where we were for our class.

Back to the blog- so this cooking class was lots of fun and at the same time really informative. Giovanni gave us each a small booklet into which we wrote the recipes and lots of tips he gave us eg you put the drained pasta into the sauce, not the other way around!

After this we met up with Elisabetta and Umberto with whom Mick had stayed in Florence just before Easter, 2005 while he spent two weeks attending an Italian language school which he loved. I had not met them but they are the sort of people you like instantly so we had a very pleasant couple of hours wandering some German/ Austrian/ French markets that Mick and I had not discovered, followed by a drink in a bar where their son Thomas works.

M: We discovered that both Elisabetta and Umberto had had some serious health problems in the intervening years - cancer and heart respectively - but both were well now. I have never been sure how much English they speak - and last night didn't shed any light on the puzzle. I am sure my Italian is much better now than it was last time, but Anne continues to amaze with her capacity to communicate in Italian and gesture, and to be well understood! E and U insisted on paying for the evening. Hopefully we will catch up again before we go.