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December 2, 2014

THE FINAL COMPETITION – CONCORSO –

CONCORSO Here comes the last lesson of the Culinary art for professional chef course. Just like every course, there must be an assessment. I think you can feel the stress pouring out of the photos today. My classmates paid a lot of effort and attention into cooking all dishes to perfection. They must remember the recipes by heart. Even the Professor was not joking much today. The ambience was almost as stressful as inside a kitchen on the busy day. However, there is a motivation waiting for them because the winner will get a big bottle of wine which Professor Francesco has prepared it himself. The dish must be presented […]

November 29, 2014

THE WINE CELLAR VISIT – CANTINE –

PRINCIPE CORSINI The visit at Villa Corti is always like a dreamlike to me. Last time I went with my batch mates in May. The garden was full of blooming roses and we saw the princess standing on the balcony. The Corsini family is one of the most prestigious Italian aristocratic families. They have contributed to many historically important things in Italy for example the Trevi Fountain in Rome was commissioned by Lorenzo Corsini Pope Clemente XII who lived between 1652-1740. Today again I went with my classmates for a guided tour of the wine cellars and the olive mill. The tour guide explained about winemaking and oil pressing methods […]

November 28, 2014

HAM AND CHEESE FACTORIES

THE VISIT AT HAM AND CHEESE FACTORIES Today I walked through the morning rain to meet up with other students as we were going for a trip to Sienna. We had visited 2 interesting factories there. The Gambassi has been making Prosciutto for 4 generations. Today Filippo who is in the 4th generation showed us his family pride. Once you enter the place , you can see the racks were full of Prociutto and other meat products. Sienese pigs are famous for their tender meat. Filippo exports his family products all the way to US and Japan. He stated a Japanese Master chef, Chef Fukuda said the Sienese porks tastes […]

November 27, 2014

The Wine Lesson4

Corso Del Vino 4 Michele was back to be our instructor again. Today he taught us about dessert wine. We leant the differences between Champagne and Sparkling wine, also the differences of Spumanto or sweet Sparkling wine and sparkling wine. First of all, Champagne is a region inFrance which produces Champagne. No other sparkling wine can be labeled Champagne outside the Champagne region. The second fermentation method creates the beautiful bubbles in Champagne as well as the price tag which is a lot higher than other sparkling wine like Prosecco. You can have Prosecco as an aperitif and drink it with your meal. However, it is not common to drink […]

November 27, 2014

Happy Birthday!

Buon Compleanno On the day of our Sausage lesson , I saw some cake batter in a bowl and Professor Francesco was making the cream as if he was baking something. I was a bit curious why he was making dessert on the sausage day. Then I found out it was a birthday of our intern student, Kenta and our classmate , Rio. The birthday cake was freshly baked by Professor Francesco. It was manly decorated by our smiley chef, Yuki san. Our friends cut the cake together while we were singing for them. Then we all laughed because it looked a bit like they were cutting a wedding cake. […]

November 26, 2014

THE SAUSAGE MENU

SALSICCE When talking about sausages ,people think about German sausages first. Today we leant how to make hand made Italian sausages. Each city has its own recipe of sausages.Tuscany is famous for its Salami with Fennel. The South of Italy is famous for their spicy sausages. Making sausages, take lot of patience and skills. The chef needs to blend all ingredients together in a big tray prior to put them inside the machine to make sausages. It’s not too difficult. You just need to keep on practicing until you are familiar with making it. The reward of your great effort is yummy grilled sausages ready to be enjoyed. TASCAN SAUSAGES […]

November 22, 2014

The Wine Lesson3

Corso Del Vino 3 Today we studied our wine lesson with Mauricio for the first time. He was full of gimmicks to keep us excited. It was the Chianti Classico day. So we learned about them in general. If you see a bottle of Chianti Classico Reserva, that means the bottles has been kept for aging at least 2 years in the Oak barrel and 3 months in the bottle. However, for the Chianti Classico, the wine needs only 1 year aging time in the barrels. The tastes and characters of the Chianti Classico and the Chianti Classico reserva are absolutely different. You will be able to spot the different […]

November 15, 2014

The Wine Lesson2

Corso Del Vino 2 Today has been another lovely day at Piazza del Vino for our 2nd Wine lesson. Our new instructor today was Michele who could explain the lesson and answered the questions professionally. We tried a few bottles of White wine today. I couldn’t remember how many bottles because after the 2nd glass I was already tipsy. Today we learned the differences of wine from each mountainous area. For example, the Firriato , “ Le Sebbie dell’Etna” , produced with Carricante grapes is dryer than wine from the North. We tried wine from Mount Vesuvius which used Falanghina grapes. Even though Tuscany is well-known for the Chianti classico, […]

November 12, 2014

COOKING FOR THE SPECIAL DAY

CUCINA PER GIORNO SPECIALE LASAGNA When talking about Italian food, Lasagna is for sure one of the favorite dish. In Napoli, you can find Lasagna with meatballs or even with sausages. The recipes for Lasagna is varied. There is Vegetarian Lasagna , Seafood, or Pesto that you can find them all over Italy. CANNELLONI Cannelloni is another dish which has different recipes. It has creamy Bechamel sauce as one of the ingredients. Once you cook Lasagna, you can at the same time prepare another tray of Cannelloni. Cannelloni all florentina is more white than other recipe. But today we cooked the classic Cannelloni which contains the tomato sauce. The red, […]

November 11, 2014

TABLE SETTING AND PASTA MAKING MACHINE

TABLE SETTING AND PASTA MAKING MACHINE Today Professor Francesco has been kind again. He bought some truffles to show us how they taste and look like. Just a bit of it can make the sauce so aromatic. No wonder they are costly. After the Pasta machine lecture, we made a quick and simple lunch. Oh well…perhaps it’s simple for the chefs. Our lunch today was Ricotta Tortellini with Truffles cream sauce and some other dry pasta with Arrabiata sauce. In a restaurant , it’s easier to use the pasta making machine to make pasta for 50- 100 people or more. Hand made pasta can be time consuming. The cost of […]