Oh man, today was… delicious! I took a pasta cooking class and it was amazing. Made 3 dishes and absolutely stuffed myself with the pasta I stuffed stuff into. Lots of stuffing. And the best part was learning a bit more about healthy eating the Italian way.
Thanks Pasta Class Florence! Totally would recommend next time you’re in Florence.
Photos: https://portageur.ca/remote-work-in-italy-day-56-cooking-class-in-florence/
Welcome back to florence i’m uh hanging out on the uh one of the uh bridges over the arnold this one is the ponte ala tough one to pronounce too many vowels and behind me of course is the ponte vecchio two bridges down beautiful bridge one of my favorites um
But uh today was another amazing day in florence uh the weather is starting to turn for the better it was bright and sunny today but interestingly enough my activities were indoors first off was my cooking class and i had to do some work looking in class was amazing it was
A small little kitchen a business that they started a couple of chefs they have a restaurant as well but they they do twice a day cooking classes and small groups and today we learned how to make pasta but in particular what we’d call like ragu or what do they call those things tortellinis
But of course they have like a bunch of names um depending on the size and the shape but basically i learned how to take um pasta stuff it with stuff put it together and then make a meal out of it and it was amazing it was fantastic the only
The only thing is is most of the stuffing was cheese but it was ricotta cheese it wasn’t that bad you know i’m sure a lot of people would would like it and it was it was kind of funny too because i i didn’t want to say anything and then
Eventually it just kind of came out and mentioned oh yeah i’m not really big into cheese or whatever and then oh is it a analogy like should we do something and i’m like no no no absolutely not i want the experience the genuine experience and rakata as far as cheese is concerned isn’t
Really very cheesy so it was all good of course when it came time for extra cheese i passed but it was so fun and uh we we made three dishes um with uh i think six kinds of uh pasta and amazingly enough we learned how to do tagliatelle and
I gotta make a video of it when i figure out how to practice this at home because it’s so fun it has a there’s a kind of a flamboyant cut and flip to it and it’s amazing it was awesome i loved it so much and the recipes this is what was so cool
The recipes are not very tough right they’re the the they’re about specific tastes as opposed to like a complex uh recipe um which i really like so for example i tend to throw a whole bunch of stuff in my sauce and i like the combination and stuff but
I mean realistically what you should do is take the right stuff and make a good specific flavor to it right and that’s what we did and i’m just so glad i took it um because it was a great experience i learned a lot um it was fun i also stuffed myself there
Like you you eat three dishes of pasta um but he also sent me home with uh with some of the pasta that we made which is really good because i’m gonna i’m gonna cook that up the next couple of days so it worked out amazingly but the experience itself again like
This whole thing was to try to do something italian to do something european so yeah i wanted to experience different cultures i wanted to experience different things and for me a lot of the time that’s food and i like it right um but what’s what really made me want to come to
Italy was how they feel about food um not you know we we tend to like have a lot of quantity over quality for one thing um but we even had an impromptu conversation about this in the cooking class about like just how industrialized some uh some of the food in north america is
Uh versus like the the hearty ingredients and i gotta tell you like i i i’ve mentioned this in other videos um you know i i don’t have the heartburn that i do at home you know that’s usually a pretty regular problem but now i just don’t have it you know
And i’ve been eating like sandwiches roast pork and you know cheese um uh although not much um and uh and pizza right pizza pasta all this kind of stuff and you’d think that i would have gained weight and i have incredible indigestion but no it’s not it’s the opposite i’ve actually
Lost weight i mean i can’t i can’t know for sure and i can’t know how much because i don’t have a scale but the jacket that i zip up usually is a lot more tight going up and it’s not anymore um which is just so amazing so like i’m so happy about that
Um and uh you know it has to do with the food i mean part of it’s i’m sure all of the walking that i do and everything but the other side of it too is italians tend to be about uh digestion and matching uh matching your whole courses based on
Digestion right you have the first course to complement the second etc and that’s really what you what i want to learn and i learned a little bit of that today and i’m really really happy about that and i also joked actually it was my doctor who joked um
That after the heart attack i should go on the mediterranean diet and uh um you know eat like an italian and he suggested i you know find myself an italian life right um you know joking of course um but uh i cook my own meals anyway um so um the point being
Is that this is the place for me to experiment with the mediterranean diet and it’s agreeing with me i won’t know whether the cholesterol levels are down and and that kind of thing until i get home i i’m really excited to see the numbers because i’m sure they just probably plummeted
And i want to see how i continue this when i get home you know what i can do to continue the momentum and and keep food um enjoyable but still healthy and and that so yeah the journey continues and it should be a lot of fun trying that’s the other thing
And i’ve already joked with my niece uh and my sister saying hey i just learned how to stuff things into pasta we should stuff things in the pasta when i get home so we’re gonna do that it’s gonna be fun i’ll figure out how to make the pizza
How to stuff things into pasta and recreate these things the other thing i learned incidentally and i’m so glad i did so uh tuscany um florence in particular is all about the steaks right which is unusual um because most of uh italian meals are about well the pasta or the
Pizzas but the veggies and the and the courses and you know one flavor complementing another as opposed to like huge amounts big portions or whatever but you walk around here and they’re advertising these big t-bone stakes and i thought about it um and i thought well if i want you know
A florence experience i should i should try out one of these stage steak places and my sister and i did try uh steak up the hill and it was really really good but it wasn’t the big t-bones that they advertise it’s not the t-bones that they put in the shop
Windows you know and to entice you these big thick big as your head t-bone steaks and i thought to myself you know like i’m i’m trying not to do that right like i’m trying to smaller portions better for me avoid the red meats you know maybe little bits of red meat that as
Opposed to big huge because that’s what i’d have at home right like i want to cook a big steak or whatever but um i found out today that you’re not supposed to eat the big steak by yourself like that’s a sharing dish right you’re supposed to order a big steak and then
But uh get some sides and like four people together eat the big steak together i thought it was particularly funny because not knowing i would go to one of these steak shops i would buy the whole big thing and sit there eating it for myself and be like wow that’s a lot
How do these italians eat so much steak you know i don’t want to waste food so i would ha i probably would have you know eaten the whole thing so now i just have to find like three people to go out to dinner with anyway i hope everyone out there is doing great
I’m doing great i hope uh you’re all taking care of yourself and finding a way to you know go on your own with little adventures and i will say bye from florence and we’ll have another video tomorrow adomani arrivederci ciao you