YUM!

Since food is so closely tied to the Italian culture, it would be ridiculous to miss the opportunity to learn how to make true Italian food. So KState arranged cooking classes for us with a well-respected chef. I joined the first half of the Orvieto group for class on Thursday:



Chef Lorenzo runs a fantastic restaurant in Orvieto called Zeppelin's, and for the second year in a row, he hosted classes for the KState Orvieto group. Lorenzo's restaurant has a secondary focus in teaching, as students of the Culinary Institutes of America often spend semesters with him learning the fine points of Italian cuisine.

The day started off at the market (well, first a detour to the oldest liquor and chocolate store in Orvieto, where we were treated to a few tastes before starting the day) where Lorenzo kept--quite literally--throwing food at us to try. Chef helped us learn which vendor specialized in what, how to buy the freshest produce, and how every market adventure needs to end with caffe and pastries. With ingredients in hand, we headed back to the restaurant.

As Zepellin students, we had to look the part--aprons for all! We broke into groups to specialize on a certain part of the meal--Adriana and I were in charged of making a metric ton of fresh pasta!



Others gathered around to start the wild boar stew, ragu sauce, potato flan, cake, fried artichokes, and breads.




The bread ladies had it down to an art.



After cooking for about 2 hours (and 'sampling' all the wine and champagne that Lorenzo magically kept showing up with), the 12 of us sat down for a great and giant lunch:


(My pasta!)

(wild boar stew=an Umbrian specialty!)

Stuffed from mass amounts of delicious food and wine, we were "forced" into doing a wine tasting--learning just how to swirl our glasses, examine legs, and of course, to vaguely look like we somewhat know what we're talking about.