Cooking May 2013

 Cooking class this week took place at the Nocosia Winery.  It didn't look like much as we drove up, but once we walked through this  hallway, it opened up to a beautiful location.

 

Our mission for the day was simple.  We were going to get a lesson from a famous Italian chef on how to make cavatelli pasta.  After making pasta, we got a tour of the winery and a brief wine tasting class with lunch.

It was a large class this time.  There were two long tables set up with cooking stations on either side of the chef.

Chef Carmelo Chiaramonte

Make pasta by putting semolina flour on the table, make a well and add water.  Then mix with your hand adding more water as needed.

Once the pasta dough is ready, pull off chunks of dough and roll into a "snake"

Then you cut off short pieces of dough.  Finally, the tricky part, you use 2 fingers to push and kind of roll the pasta

The final product

Sauce:  saute onion in some pork fat, add cubed pork and cook slowly, add tomato paste, add 1 cup red wine and 2-3 cups water.  Finally add red pepper flakes or white fennel seeds and finish with fresh marjoram.

 

 

 

 

Here is a small part of their bottling operation

My cooking class buddy!

Some serious wine tasting planned for lunch!

This is the correct way to hold your wine glass!

First course:  pancetta and marmalade

Chicken wings, YUMMY

Our first pasta course, it had a cream sauce underneath and then a meat sauce on top.

The pasta we made.  It was chewy, almost like a dumpling.  The sauce was ok, but I didn't care for the fennel in it.

beef stew and potatoes

This was dessert.  It looks pretty and it smelled ok.  However, it was some sort of almond something and it was not sweet at all.  Definitely not my favorite.

All in all, we didn't learn a lot on this trip, but it was a great day.  Good food, good wine, and good friends!

STEMposium by: Sammie

From May 12-17, I was in Germany for a school associated program called STEMposium. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEMposium is an event where students from all of the schools around Europe come together into teams to try and solve a problem in a unique way. There are six kids per team and 15 teams, each named after a letter of the Greek alphabet. Each of the six students on each team had a different job, I was a biotechnology engineer. The other jobs were disaster response, green technology engineer, robotics engineer, computer simulations, and environmental engineer. In the weeks leading up to STEM, emails are sent out with hints about what the scenario is, and about two weeks before-hand, they give you your team name, the people on your team, and what job you have. I was put on Team Zeta.
This is my team at the press conference table.

These are my roommates and I on the bus.

We arrived Sunday night and were instantly plunged into the disaster without even having met our teams. Our scenario was that there had been a three year drought in Germany, a bark beetle infestation, rising CO2 levels, and four forest fires burning around Heidelberg, and two within city limits. We did a little bit of team building that night, because we hadn't started our classes yet. The next day, we started classes, they were called STEMinars. We would have two three-hour classes a day followed by press conferences from each team, a guest speaker, dinner, and then group time from 8:00-10:00. Lights out was at 10:30 and we had to wake up at 6:00 the next morning. On Wednesday, we had field trips. Biotech and enviro went to the Odenwald forest (the location of two of the fires). We spent a day hiking and then we went to the Heidelberg Castle.

Me holding a badger skin.

We walked back to the bus with a piece of sticky paper and put anything we thought was pretty onto it. This was mine.

Heidelberg

Heidelberg

The hill we walked up to to get to the castle.

The inside of the castle.

inside

view from the castle

The next day, biotech went to the zoo! We saw the zoo keepers feed the sea lions and we got to pet the tortoises!

This single slab of meat is bigger than me.

The zookeeper actually let us step inside of the tortoise habitat to pet them.

About 8 of us bought masks!

Thursday afternoon, we had two hours to put any final touches on our project that we needed to. Then, at 3:30, it was time for open house and judging.

Team Zeta's final project.

That night, we had a jeopardy formatted quiz game called STEM bowl. There were points available for STEM bowl, but my team didn't get many.

Milano: A lot of fun, and a little culture!

This week, Sam and I left the boys to head out to Milan for a girls only trip.  The plan had been in the works since November, when Sam got tickets to see One Direction for her birthday.

Finally, the day had come.  We headed to Milan with 2 other families, and 4 girls in total.

 Sam was tired!  She had gotten home around 1 am Saturday from a week long school trip to Germany, and we had an early morning flight on Sunday.  (Sam is going to write a guest blog about her time in Germany, hopefully this weekend).

Waiting at the airport.  These girls were all smiles the whole trip!

We had no plans for the 3 days in Milan, other than to go to the concert.  So after we checked-in to our hotel we hit the metro and headed for the Duomo, and it was impressive!

As we walked up from the metro, the Duomo is the first thing we saw.  It was beautiful and massive.

Milan!  We made it!

The moms!

We headed to dinner and then to what must be the BEST gelato shop in Italy!

Behind the girls in the window was a man stirring up what must be the gelato, or the chocolate sauce.  You got to pick a flavor or 2 of gelato, and then one of the chocolate sauces for the top.  It was perfection!  On the left, Sam is in front of their window with the best looking chocolate fountain ever!












Then we walked into the covered outdoor mall area where there were tons of caribinieri because most people couldn't afford to breathe the air in there, let alone buy anything in the stores!

 We did walk into Louis Vuitton.  The sunglasses were  435 euro, not exactly in our price range!











We continued walking around Milan to see what there was to see.  AKA  a little bit of culture ;)

                       

 

Above is Castello Sforzesco.  They had a nice market inside, and we got some wine, cheese, salami, and fresh buffalo yogurt to snack on back at the hotel.

A little more fun to offset the culture!

Finally, we headed to the fashion square.  Via Della Spiga......

Not sure what this sign means, no carrying big things along this road?  Some of the street signs in Italy crack me up!

 By the end of the evening, the kids were tired!So we headed back to the hotel to get some rest for the BIG DAY!

On our way back to the hotel, the girls spotted some other girls carrying 1D bags.  Turns out they had a temporary store location in Milan for the concert.  Guess what our first order of business was on Monday!

                              Waiting in line to get into the 1D store.  Can't you feel the excitement!?!

 Upstairs, there were large pictures of the band on every wall.  We took at least 1 picture with each of them.  I am going to spare you the whole set, and just give you a little taste.

 Downstairs is where you went to get your gear.  No lines, no organization, just tables and you have to push your way to the front and grab the cashiers to get your stuff.

                                                                          The signing wall

Sam with her gear!

One more stop before going back to get ready......Where else, but Abercrombie and Fitch.  We heard it is the only one in Italy.  They had guys dressed like the models in the pictures greeting you as you walked in.  It was 3 stories of a dimly lit, smelly store, but the girls had fun.

Back to the hotel to get ready.....

Some of the 1D stuff Sam got at their store.

Once everyone was ready, we headed out to get to the forum.

 The metro was filled with kids and their parents heading to the concert.  Some girls asked where we were from, and they were so excited to meet Americans!  One girl said she wanted to be an American.  Some girls were crying because they were so excited be going to see 1D.  It was crazy!
It was a complete mob scene.  There were no lines as we know them, just a mass of people pushing to get in!  Fortunately, everyone got in safely, and Sam said it was the best experience of her life!

















Our last day there, we had a late flight out, so we did a little more exploring.

 We started at this American style cupcake bakery.  It was very cute, and the flavors were promising.  The cupcakes, however, were a little dry.

Next we headed to the aquarium.....

Finally, we went back to the Duomo to find this little restaurant we were told had the best pizza in Milan.  It had been closed Sunday and Monday, but we thought we'd give it a chance.Good thing we did, because it was DELICIOUS!  It isn't exactly pizza, it is panzerotti. Panzerotti is a yeasty kind of dough which is stuffed and then deep fried.  I would have eaten those for every meal had they been open!

We then got a couple more pictures in the Duomo Piazza.....

Finally we got on the train and headed to the airport....

While this is not a great picture, there is a story to go with it.  The train was empty when we first got on, but a couple stops in, a teacher with about 15-20 students around the girls ages got on, and stood right by the girls.  They immediately started talking to the girls and were really in their face, as the Italians don't have the same need for a personal bubble.  They chatted with the girls the entire time they were on the train.  Our girls claimed to have been practicing their Italian, but I think the Italian kids were speaking as much English as they were speaking Italian.

It was a great time.  The 4 girls all got along so well together.  They were silly and sweet and just took in and enjoyed every moment!  I would do another trip with these ladies and girls in a heartbeat!