She has a doctorate in Paleontology but could not make any money at it, so she came back to the family farm and started her own business. You can find more at: http://www.cookinumbria.it/. She provides rooms to rent, cooking classes, Italian language classes, guided tours, and truffle hunting. Quite the enterprising woman.
After a brief introduction, we got down to business. We started with the initial preparation of the crust for the Crostata (cherry preserve pie). She asked for volunteers and two of us got up to the table and mixed flour and eggs and created a large ball of dough that was wrapped and put in the refrigerator for later.
Then one of the helpers starting searing four pork tender loins and I went to help turn them in the skillet.
Next was cutting up asparagus into tiny pieces, plus pork cheeks and throwing them into a skillet to simmer for 20 minutes. This is called Guanciale Sauce and will be put on the pasta.
This was followed by preparing Millefoglie di melanzane: eggplant with tomatoes, and two kinds of cheese.
The final step was learning how to make homemade pasta. This is a lot of work.
The process starts with forming a pile of flour with a hole in the middle for the eggs. Mix and slowly combine with a fork. Then roll and knead.
Linda and Rafaela bonded over the pasta making.
The final steps involve running the pieces of dough through a pasta maker eight times to get them super thin and then changing the setting and having the maker cut the dough into strips.
The tagliatelle was cooked in boiling water for 5 minutes with no olive oil. I always was told that you put olive oil into the boiling water to keep the pasta from sticking, but not here.
The dough for the dessert was brought out and formed into a pie shell and filled with Rafaela's own cherry preserve, topped with dough strips and baked.
The finished product.
This is what the pasta looked like after cooking and adding the asparagus sauce and tossing.
We finished our work and were rewarded with multiple bottles of wine and all that food. A really good time was had by all. We cleaned our plates.
We all drank too much wine and had a little trouble getting up from the table to board our bus for our WALKING tour of Perugia. Yes, two hours.
While we were saying our goodbyes, we learned that Rafaela was selling wine, preserves, and handmade placemats. Had to have some of that.
Then we were onto the bus and off to Perugia.
We met our tour guide in the main square and we started our tour.
He learned about our southerners in the group and started making jokes about them. I think Jerry told him to calm it down. Just a little too much.
Again, the town sits up on a hill and therefore you get a great view of the Umbrian countryside.
Our guide took us underground to get to the middle ages and even some Etruscan walls. I find it fascinating that the ground rises over the centuries and you have to dig to get to earlier structures. This is not news, but when you actually see it, it still surprises.
There was an exhibit of medieval costumes. Linda wore something similar when she was in the play, Murder In The Cathedral, about the murder of Thomas Becket.
This arch was originally constructed by the ancient Etruscans. That's pre-Roman (200 BC). Its still here. Hmmm. Pretty good engineering.
This room was called the Parliament Room. The distinctive feature are the walls containing the coats of arms of each president of the town assembly.
Then on to the Gothic cathedral. Its special feature: it contains the wedding ring used by Joseph and Mary to wed. Really? In the Jewish tradition, the wrists of the bride and groom are tied together and a ring is also tied to them. Its in a special safe and only brought out 3 times a year. They are afraid someone will steal because Perugia stole it from another city a few hundred years ago. Takes one robber to know another.
After the tour, we had just enough time to buy some chocolates and drink a coffee before it was time to get back on the bus.
That was enough for one day.
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