8-Course Meal & Music to My Ears

Today I participated in an Italian cooking class...in German. The German couple staying at the B and B signed up for a lesson and Barbara let me join. I think she worried I would be bored, but after sitting through hours and hours of meetings and events and life in Mongolian for almost three years, cooking delicious food and listening to the music of a new language was fine by me!

I don't have all of the ingredients but here's the gist...

Five antipasti's:
1. Lightly fried vegetables and herb- sage, eggplant, zucchini, zucchini flower, fennel- and seasoned
2. Baguette with a cream cheese/sun dried tomato spread, one topped with sun dried tomatoes and the other with roasted pine nuts
3. Grilled slices of zucchini with cream cheese spread, rolled up like sushi
4. Baguette with cocoa/chicken liver spread
5. Eggplant, rolled up with some basil and other ingredients and baked

Three pastas:
1. Penne w/ tomatoes, garlic, OO, basil, and chunks of mozzarella (sauce is cold/summer pasta)
2. Shell w/ tomato sauce, sun dried tomatoes, garlic (sauce is heated/winter pasta)
3. Spiral w/ fresh parsley, arugula, OO and chunks of Parmesan (sauce is cold/summer pasta)

...and lots of delicious chianti wine...I was in foodie heaven (and a coma). Sounds simple but: Words. Cannot. Describe!!!

I learned a lot by watching and even learned which noodles to eat with which ingredients (I had no idea there was a rhyme or reason to the shape of the noodle). My new favorite food is zucchini flowers, made with mozzarella and lightly fried.

Hope I can get translated recipes so I can make for you at home :)