Saturday, May 26th -- We met Georgio this morning for our final coffee. Karen had already left for Spain early this morning, so Georgio had packed sandwiches for us to take on our trip. Our picnic bags each held a ceramic plate with the traditional rooster, and a bottle of wine. Georgio arranged for a cab to take us to our auto rental agency where we packed our luggage and headed to Naples, a trip of about 5-hours. On the way we stopped at Polignano a Mare, a lovely seaside town where we ate our lunch and enjoyed the view.

The drive was uneventful, but the surprise came when we arrived in Naples. We had never been there but had been told that it was like no city we had likely seen before. True in spades. But we were truly unprepared for the place we chose to stay based on Frances Mayes book, A Year in the World, the B&B Avallone.  It's located in the Spanish Quarter of Naples on a street so narrow that it was impossible to believe it could hold one way traffic traffic. It was a two way street with two and three people on scooters hurteling themselves through the street and sidewalks, most without helmets or any regard to their or anyone else's saftey, up, down and sideways between cars, pedestrians, and other scooters. The B&B entry was a cutout in a garage door. When our host greeted us, we unloaded the car that we left on what little space was available and hauled our luggage  through a dark garage and up three flights of ladders steep stairs to the floor that held our rooms. The manager's father told me to follow him to an auto garage about 1/2 mile away at the top of the hill. I dropped the car off and climbed on the back of his scooter and we went back to the B&B.  I've never seen anything like it -- where we stayed, the chaos of the city, the total disregard for life by every driver, the crowds, the decay. I doubt that the pictures I've attached to the blog can provide a real sense of what we saw.









For dinner we walked thorugh the mayhem to a pizza restaurant that has its roots back to the 18th century. On the way, we walked past some of the most maginficent properties you can imagine, surrounded by the decay of a city that no one in their right mind would invest in. I'm afraid that the culture of Naples will prevent it from ever becoming a Florence or Rome.

The pizzas were soggy, the least appealing of any we had in Italy (and we've had many). We reluctantly returned to our B&B to hopefully find some sleep. I will say it was clean, the toilets flushed, and we did sleep through the night.

Friday, May 25th  -- For our last day of cooking school we met as usual at Martinica's. We were joined by a Canadian single woman that Giorgio had somehow overlooked in his booking confirmations. We decided for our last day of cooking school to remake two of the dishes we really liked, the grilled fish and the brined chicken in red wine. We went shopping for our ingredients and then headed back to the school. We learned to make yet another type of pasta that looks a bit like a sea shell, made in a similar manner to the "pigs ears" pasta, but without turning the rolled shape back over a finger. We also made thin pasta strips that we would use for a hearty vegetable soup that we made for lunch, and we baked up some  "jo-jo's" in olive oil, salt and bread crumbs. I grilled the "spegala" or sea bass (bronzino) as well. Wine of course. For dinner we made the chicken, the orechetti pasta with a tomato sauce. We received a gift bag with a recipe book, a CD of the music we listened to during the week, and our personalized aprons. That was pretty much it for the day.  Lorraine (the Canadian who joined us for the day) daught a train north that night, and we headed back to our hotel after heartfelt thank yous to Silvestro and Giussepi.

Daniel Creating Fried Pasta Strips for Soup

Guiseppi Showing us How

Silvestro at Blackboard in Dining Room

Plate Collection

Thursday, May 24th -- We met Georgio for coffee at Martinica at 11:00 am before heading off to the market to buy cheeses, bread and meat for sandwiches to take on our day trip to Otronto, a small picturesque seaside community on the Adriatic with a very long history. We made sandwiches for a lunch picnic and met our driver for the trip. We now what it means to have what Silvestro referred to as a low flying car in southern Italy. Our driver (we believe he's a transplanted native American Indian) had long black finely groomed hair, drove a 7-passenger van, and maneuvered it through the most narrow streets of the old city as though he were driving on a deserted city street in Bellingham. No honking needed as pedestrians simply eased over to hug the walls as we passed by. Once outside the city walls and onto the "expressway" to Otronto I watched as the speedometer registered 130 kph (80 mph).  And of course he was doing that at times while talking on his cell phone. Daniel and I were able to put on seat belts, but I'm not sure how much protection that would have afforded us at that speed.

As you can surmise from the fact that you're reading this, we did in fact survive the trip (in both directions). We picnicked on a prominence on the port of Otronto overlooking a most picturesque harbor, clear turquoise waters, and surrounded by finely restored buildings, some dating to the 12th century. We saw the castle where Silvestro's fiance's family spends their summers, an ancestral home (something we have few of in the States, especially castles). we spent a pleasant afternoon walking the streets of the city, ending with gellato before being picked up for our return ride back (well buckled up I might add).

Horse meat at maket

Horse meat types

Boats at Otranta Harbor

Otranto Harbor

Picnic Lunch at Hrbor

Silvestro Bicycled to Otronto

Castle in Otarto (Silvestro's future Inlaws Summer Home)

Otronto Harbor

Us at Otronto Harbor

Old City from Castle Wall

As we were on our own for dinner, we chose a recommended restaurant a block from our hotel where we had a rather non-descript dinner with a bottle of wine. Gellato in the town square and then to our hotel before 10:30 pm.  Last day's cooking school is tomorrow.

Wednesday, May 23rd -- Today was a full day of cooking class beginning at 10:00 am when we went on a shopping expedition with Silvestro for the day's provisions.  We began again at the fresh produce market.  It's interesting that none of the produce is touched or picked by the buyers.  It is expected that a produce worker would be asked to pick whatever amount is needed, and bag the item for you.  Silvestro likened it to someone coming into your house and touching your personal belongings.  It's rude and simply not done.  Besides the fresh produce and bread, we went to a fresh fish market outside the city walls.  Fish is displayed on a steel table, no ice used at all.  We were told that the table is refrigerated from beneath, but its appearance is off putting for an American shopper used to seeing fish kept on ice. Silvestro selected mussels for Donna and me, and two kinds of fish that we would cook for both and dinner -- fillets of bronzino for lunch, and whole sea bass for dinner.

We returned to the school and learned to make two more kinds of pasta, one that is pulled with a knife and then rolled back over your finger to expose a large, fractured surface area to capture the sauce (orechetti), and the other a very thin tube created by rolling a small dough ball onto a twisted metal rod. The dough used was the same combination of 70% white and 30$ durham flour.

For lunch we had the bronzino fillets baked in parchment paper, the orechetti with a broccoli rob sauce, arugula salad, and fresh apricots for dessert. For dinner we had the pasta tubes with a tomato sauce, the sea bass grilled, cooked chicory (boiled and then sauteed with garlic and peporacini), and a baked pear with vin cotta and left over ricotta from yesterday's dessert.



Beautiful Produce at Market



Tomatos at Market



Martinez Cafe where we met each morning



Chicken at Market



Fish Market



Squid at Market



Only refrigerator at School



Silvestro's Classroom



Guiseppi and Karen



Donna Picking Mint for a Recipe



Karen Using Her Own Drying Technique



The Girls in Class



Tube Pasta Made in Class

Grilled Sea Bass (Daniel's Creation)



Tomato Sauce for Pasta

Silvestro gave us a lesson on Italian phrases that should come in handy, but who could possibly remember any of them.  Okay, I got one -- salve, for hello rather than the far more informatl ciao.  We had a few wines, but the rose was particularly enjoyable.  We'll get a listing of the wines before we leave.  We finished up around 10:00 pm and headed back to our hotel for a "early" evening. tomorrow we head out to a coastal town - Otranto on the Adriatic.

Tuesday, May 22nd -- Silvestro arranged for us to have a tour of the old city with Timothy, an English journalist and art historian living in Lecce. Timothy was as delightful a character as the sites were interesting to visit. His knowledge of the area was both impressive and entertaining. While what we see dates principally to the 17th century and later, the area's history far predates what is visible. Ruins of a Roman amphetheaterare being restored in the center of town are prominently displayed, and Timothy informed us that the history of the city dates much further back, well before both the Romans and the Greeks with records of a people called the Mesapians (who also had a distinct language).

Timothy at Ampheatheater

Roman Ampheatheater

Timothy dropped us off at the school near 1:00 pm where lunch had already been prepared -- spaghetti with garlic, parmasean, and olive oil; a baked 3 kg chicken baked served with a "vin cotta" (the highly thickened sauce made from a wine reduction), and some vegetables.  Served with wine of course. We ended with fresh cantelope.  After resting before meeting once again for dinner, we went shopping for dinner, entirely vegetarian. While I made crepes for our dessert, we prepared a ton of veggies for grilling, a swiss chard like green that was boiled, and a pruree of fava beens. Silvesstro gave us a lesson on wines, and we had a tasting of two different wines served in different types glasses. Turns out the both wines (Italian red) were from the same bottle, but only Sharona guessed that they were the same wine -- they tasted so different based on the glasses they were served in.

We finished early last night (before 10:00 p.m.)  I'm working hard at keeping up with this blog, but it is getting to be a bit difficult as the days are really getting long.

Meeting at Martinica Cafe before Shopping

Donna and Sharona at Martinica

Silvestro on Shopping Trip

Horse Meat Counter at Market

Cheese Man at Market

Donna and Karen at School

Dinner Table

Monday, May 21st -- Our first day at The Awaiting Table.  We met for breakfast on the first floor of our hotel in an unusual dining area with several, and very old small tables for two.  Breakfast in this part of Italy consists of very dense bread, pastries, yogurt and coffee.  Silvestro picked us up at our hotel and we walked over to a local coffee house where we met a young honeymoon couple from London who joined us for the day at school, Nick and Alexa, along with Georgio.

Silvestro then took us on a shopping expedition to purchase the items we would need for preparing both lunch and dinner today. We vistied several shops, but the groceries were all purchased at the market store that had departments for meat, poultry, a seperate counter for horse meat (really), fruits and vegetables. We were told that horses are raised in Italy specifically for meat and is considered a staple meat source.

We then proceded to the school where we learned to make pasta dough that we then shaped into both Mexican hats and a spiraled shape about 6-inches long. The dough was made from a combination of wheat and barley flour. We each made different things for lunch -- the Mexican hat pasta, a potato casserole, a veggie dish -- we also had several cheeses again, and wine. My contribution was melting a kilo of sugar that I poured over almonds to make an almond brittle, with a lemon half rubbed across the hardened surface. Not my favorite dessert.

After lunch we went back to our hotel to rest until 6:30 pm when we were to meet Silvestro at the Central Square for a short walk and back to the school to cook dinner. Rather than resting, which would have been smarter, we took an hour walk around the old section of Lecce. We has littletime for rest before meeting up with Silvestro shortly after finishing our own walk. He took us to the new shopping area of Lecce -- we wanted to buy soccer jerseys for the grandchildren and he took us to a shop specializing in everything soccer. We bought several Lecce soccer team jerseys and then headed back to class.

The spiral shaped pasta had dried, and we prepared fennel, peppers and eggplant which were all grilled on the range.  Tomato sauce (almost the consistency of tomato juice) was reduced for the pasta sauce with a very strong gorganzola cheese added. Once again we had several wines, a rose while we prepared dinner, and a red at the table. Silvestro gave us several chalkboard lessons on foods of Italy by region, interesting but lost quickly after.

We finished dinner and headed back to our hotel about 11:00 pm.  We said our goodbyes to Nick and Alexa who were invited to join us on our city walking tour tomorrow, but would probably head out on their own as they had only a few days left of their honeymoon.