The kids have been getting along really well on this trip, and there has been some snuggling.
We started the day with breakfast. I have a goal to try all of the exotic pastries that Italy has to offer. Today’s favorites are the pear and chocolate croissant, and the maritozzi. It’s bread with whipped cream down a center cut. It’s not too sweet and the flavor is divine. We’re also enjoying the Tuscan melons which are locally grown and perfectly ripe.
We’re getting used to the European style of laundry, which seems to be washing tiny loads every day and drying them by a window.
After a slow and leisurely start, we headed to the artisan neighborhood of Oltrarno. It’s across the Arno from where we’re staying. Rick Steves recommends wandering around, so we took a circuitous route to our class.
We took a class at Florence Food Studio, where we learned to make pizza and gelato the Florentine way. It was SO cool. Our chef/teacher Giorgio was wonderful.
We each made our own pizza dough.
While the dough was rising, we worked together in the kitchen to peel and chop tomatoes and make the sauce, and strawberries for the gelato. The whole time Giorgio was talking about the methods and history of making pizza and gelato in Florence. Florentines believe that gelato was invented here in the 1400’s, but the Sicilians also claim to have invented it. It was reserved for only the very wealthy, as someone had to climb a mountain to get the ice to make it.
We used egg yolks for the gelato, so the egg whites to make lingua di gato, cat’s tongue cookies to use as spoons for the gelato.
Next, Giorgio showed us how to stretch the dough gently, and we tried out the techniques.
With the dough ready, we added sauce, salami (pepperoni?) and olives to our pizzas. Giorgio said not to add too much sauce or the crust wouldn’t cook correctly. Then it was partially baked before we added the cheese.
While we waited during the first baking, Giorgio showed us how a chef would make a calzone. In about 51 seconds, apparently.
It was lovely to sit at a big wooden table and enjoy our creations. The kids were excited to have Fanta because it doesn’t have dyes here. Bill and I tried some local wine that didn’t even have a label. There are wine shops here where you just bring in your bottle and they fill it for you.
When we removed our aprons and Giorgio saw Bill’s shirt, he was excited to share that he’s fan of Gogol Bordello too. He has seen them here in Italy.
After our class, we wandered around the neighborhood of Oltrarno. Rick Steves describes it as an area where artisans still make things in the old way, and where some have their workshops open. This was our experience. We came across a cobbler’s shop. There was a master and a few apprentices making custom shoes by hand. They had wooden forms along the wall with people’s names on them, so that after the first pair of shoes, they could make more without the person coming in. They had wine on their work tables. We entered thinking that we might get Liam a pair of nice dress shoes, but we quickly realized that these shoes, which take six months to make, were way out of our price range.
We went to a leather shop that has been owned by the same family since the 40’s. Everything is the same – the fixtures and the artisans they use. There is a photo by the door of a little girl sitting on a chair in 1947, and that little girl was the older woman who helped us. And the same exact chair was still there! We bought Liam a belt.
We found a little shop that had pieces from a bunch of different artists. We bought some souvenirs here, because we would rather support local artists than buy junk mass produced in China.
We walked back to our place as the sun was setting.
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