I don't know about you, but when I think of Italy, I think of food. Marghertia pizza, homemade pasta, tiramisu, you name it! The two just kind of go together. Exactly the same way as how peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, and gravy and mashed potatoes—well, you get the gist—go together.
When Jacob and I went on our trip to Italy this past year, naturally I wanted to take a cooking class from a real Italian chef! We looked into several options before we left for our trip, and finally decided to take this one from Florencetown. Florencetown offers a Cooking Class complete with a Market Tour for €79. Although, they also offer a variety of other options for some pretty fun classes and tours. I bet you'd easily find something worth checking out! This Pizza and Gelato Cooking Class definitely sounded tempting...
At the start of our cooking class, we met up at the Florencetown office in Florence, all 15 of us (or however many were in the class, it seemed pretty small which was nice), and we headed over to the Central Market for a tour. With my camera in tow, I was pretty stoked to see a real Italian market! We walked through the market, while I literally took pictures of EVERYTHING for my blog, and our two cooking instructors taught us how to buy the best ingredients for our class that day. Let's just say, I wanted to bring everything home with me, it's a shame that it wouldn't all fit in my backpack! Instead I decided on a bag of colorful Italian pasta (which I still need to find the perfect recipe for, since it's still sitting in my pantry).
After an amazing tour of the market, we headed back into town for our cooking class. We suited up in our aprons, and were placed into small groups of four people. Our instructors introduced themselves, and then continued to teach us the true art of Italian cooking.
We learned how to make tiramisu, tagliatelle and ravioli (which only use TWO ingredients!), and bolognese sauce.
The whole experience was hands-on! We were even introduced to some amazing Italian appetizers...pears and balsamic vinegar, truffle oil, crostini, etc. Jacob wanted to bring a bottle of truffle oil home so bad. Anyone know where to find some here in the states?
The whole cooking class lasted about five and a half hours, and I enjoyed every second of it! Jacob and I now feel like we could even own our own Italian restaurant...
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