… so Mia could learn, too. We met Mia a little after noon to walk to Carabaccia, a restaurant recommended by the concierge at the hotel. Lunch was great: prosecco to whet our whistles, bruschetta, cream of potato and carrot soup, penne and spaghetti with artichokes.
Well fed, we climbed in the car for the drive from Firenze to Lucca. Lots of interesting things to see along the way. A really big (odd) bird. A beautiful tree against the bright blue sky. Beautiful houses and churches.
Our class with Chef Paolo Monti started promptly at 4 pm, with the making of cantuccini, the traditional little biscotti of Firenze, which are often served with Vin Santo dessert wine for dunking. The cantuccini was followed by two appetizers: a chicken liver pate spread for bread, and a similar spread made from roasted eggplant. Both were yummy – and easy to make. We ate the spreads with bread as we were cooking.
We also made a pork roast with roasted potatoes. Frank cut little pockets in the roast and filled them with a combination of chopped herbs, then covered the roast with strips of pancetta, wrapped it in foil, and roasted it in the oven.
Several pastas followed – a ravioli stuffed with swiss chard, pine nuts, bread crumbs, cheese and egg, as well as spaghetti and fettuccine, and “poorly cut pasta” - maltagliati; an interesting bread crumb salad; and a Tuscan Bolognese sauce. When we finished our cooking chores, the chef prepared several courses of the food we had cooked, and had us served in the restaurant.
We ended the meal with the cantuccini and Vin Santo, as well as a selection of homemade “-cellos” and “–cinis” of the chef’s creation. There were coffee, orange and pepperoncini varieties. The chef joined us to talk, and told us the recipe he follows starts with ½ liter of pure alcohol, in which you steep the rind of lemon, orange, basil leaves, etc. for a few weeks. Remove the steeping substance and add a simple syrup made by boiling twice as much water as the liters of alcohol (in this instance, 1 liter of water with 400 grams of sugar). The sugar must be completely dissolved, and the syrup cooled before it is added to the alcohol mixture. The concoction is bottled and chilled before serving. For the coffeecello he used ½ liter alcohol with 1 liter of expresso, and did not steep anything in the alcohol. The pepperoncino was made with 6-7 dried tiny hot peppers, plus 2-3 slices of sweet red pepper. Now if only there was someplace in Maryland to buy pure alcohol…
Dinner over, we drove home in the rain in what seemed like a late rush hour; according to Mia, Easter Monday is traditionally a day when families leave the city to do something in the country to celebrate spring, and we met all of them coming back to Firenze at the same time as us.
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