Did you know?
This morning we headed out to the Piazza Del Mercato to meet up with an instructor of the cooking school we went to last night. She would teach us all about the meats, fruits, and veggies- how they were prepped, what they are best used for, what's in season, and other fun facts and tips. For example, she explained to us that darker fish meat indicates that it eats other fish; it is a predator. This would be good to know for cooking because the meat would be more tough to cook than say a more fatty and lean fish like a salmon. Additionally, she clued us in on some cool price comparison hacks and how to decipher what they mean. So, when there are drastic price differences between two of the same kinds of meat (chicken for example), it means that the more expensive chicken essentially had a better life. It wouldn't have been fed by the farmer, but had the opportunity to eat as it pleased around the land. It has everything to do with how it was raised and the quality of the meat.
On this tour of the market, we sampled balsamic vinaigrettes and a few olive oils. We learned about the difference in musts and how that really impacts the taste of the vinaigrette. This determines the sweetness or acidic taste that is given in the balsamic. Learning this was really interesting because I always thought it was the ageing process that determined the flavor. In fact, the higher the must, the more sweet the vinegar will be. I also learned that you should never buy a balsamic that is bottled in a clear glass because it'll change the flavor or the vinegar. Furthermore, just because a bottle you buy in America reads "made in Italy" doesn't necessarily mean it was produced there. It just guarantees that it was bottled in Italy. After we gather our ingredients at the food market, we headed off to the kitchen at InTavola to make lunch.
The menu included:
- Tomato Bruschetta
- Baked Meatloaf with parmesan, parsley, rosemary, mint, mortadella, and garlic
- Freshwater pasta with a mediterranean sauce
- Panna Cotta with a strawberry sauce
Panna cotta is my most favorite dessert in the ENTIRE world so I was ecstatic to make it! It was everything I had hoped and dreamed for. Seriously, it was perfection- I ate two of them! I'd never had panna cotta with a jam or sauce on top of it and I was pleasantly surprised. The only way I've had it is lightly flavored- my favorite flavor at home is lavender. As far as the main course, I liked it better than last night's! The pasta was significantly better in my opinion. Maybe it had something to do with using egg versus not incorporating that into the dough. I'm not really sure. It could have been the sauce on top of the pasta that really enhanced the dish too. Anyways, I devoured the pasta portion of the dish and even went back for seconds. It was just more flavorful I think which is what drew me to it more this time around. Finally, the meatloaf was good, but it wasn't my favorite. I'm not a huge meatloaf girl in the first place, but it was tasty for what it was worth.
After lunch we kinda walked around before dinner which would be in a mere few of hours. Paige and I headed off to get a refreshing drink and landed upon what would become our favorite juice bar! I ordered the "workout" juice which had grapefruit, strawberries, and mint in it. Alberto is the name of bar and it was over the bridge, somewhere we wouldn't have found if we weren't just cruising around. I was a little skeptical about the mint paired with the fruit but it was so pure and clean tasting. There was no pulp and the drink was so silky. The small cup was a little pricer than some of the other juice places we would go to later but for clear reasons...it was the best.
7:00 came around pretty quickly which meant we had to head back into town for dinner at this pizza place called Pizzeria Vecchio Caffè. We were given 3 choices of pizza to order and I decided on the classic margherita pizza. It simply had mozzarella, tomato sauce, and basil on it. Although simple, it was very flavorful. It wasn't the same as Divina Pizza, but it was really good.
