It Was An Experience

It is really hard to put into words the next adventure I was involved in.  Sure, I could say it was a cooking class, but in fact it was so much more.   I have now taken several cooking classes in the three years I have been traveling to Italy. But this was really next level.  From the very beginning it was different.  Any of the other classes I have taken I show up, everything we need is laid out on a table.  We cook.   Here, we were just sort of plunged into this man’s life of pulling a meal together.  Actually living the life of another culture and I thought that aspect of it was amazing!  

The night we arrived we discovered was Woman’s Day in Italy.  (Yes, I queried. They have Mother’s Day as well)  The upshot was, restaurants were packed.  It took three calls to find a place that would take us in as a favor to Francesco.  Of all things, a very large Irish bar.  I was quite pleased that Francesco was joining us.  I had a cheeseburger because I was craving.  I was a month in at this point remember, and I was hoping to get lucky.  I totally should have had a pizza.  Burgers in Italy come from grass fed beef.  Farm boy that I am, I a corn fed beef fan.  I think the grass fed tastes dry and gamey.   The bun was oversized and dry.  Probably because most people are smart enough to not order a burger in Italy.  Francesco ordered some battered potato wedges that were wonderful.  The potatoes were so fresh, so much just potato flavor!   Italy is so good at getting fresh food to peoples’ plates.  

So good in fact it made for a surprising problem the next day.  I wanted to buy some tomato seeds and bring them back.  In America, every grocery store, hardware, home supply,  garden store, farm store, gift shop and countless others all carry a full compliment of garden seeds.  In Italy seeds are tough to find.  I think it’s because in America, having a garden is almost the only way to get really fresh produce.  I look at the stuff we saw in a fresh market and think, on my best day as a gardener, I could maybe grow something that looks this perfect.  It is essentially just as fresh and I don’t have to do all the work.  Yes, now I understand why gardening is not as popular.

Francesco also suggested just buying some tomatoes and removing the seeds, allowing them to dry.  I immediately thought, wow, that is a huge difference in Italy.  In America it is illegal to buy tomatoes at the grocery story, dry the seeds and plant them.  Seeds can be copyrighted in the US and farmers can tell you seed companies like to make examples of people.  Would they go after a gardener?  Who knows?  But my life is a living example of how crazy the US court system is.

My sad burger experience two wonderful
whole grain pizzas at the back of the frame.

Over dinner, we were involved in an Italian stereotype I had often read about.  We spent a significant part of the meal talking about the next day’s meal!   One of the first questions, did we want to have meat or fish?  Now when I answered fish, I was thinking of things swimming around and having scales.  After being in Agropoli and now in Taranto even further south, I should have thought to ask more questions. I had warned him I was a no mollusk guy.  He remembered that from our initial booking.  I didn’t want to come off a picky eater.  I prefer “choosy” anyway. 

Marble streets of Taranto.

Coming out of the restaurant we had an amusing bit of confusion.  Francesco turned to me and said, “You like crap?”, uh, what did this man just say to me?, I shook my head in confusion, “You like crap? Crap?”  I again was clueless, because I was not going to have a crap conversation with anyone. Then he went on, “Crap!  Crap! They spread’a chocolate on them’a!” I was enlightened.  Crape.  Yes!  He took us out for crapes.  

I forgot what time it was in the morning we were in the car.  I remember it being early, so I just checked the timestamp on the photo.  My first pictures were taken at 9:40. Ok, so it was still morning.  We went to a fish market.  Everything there had been caught that day and it was a beautiful selection.  We were there to buy squid.  I didn’t realize there are different species(I think) and different parts of a squid you can buy.  I also don’t know where the octopus line occurs.  I think I saw some things that qualified.  Francesco picked out a lot of squid, two different types.  I spotted some wonderful looking salmon steaks.  I haven’t had salmon cut that way in many years.  We added those in. I can’t remember what we paid.  It wasn’t much.  Maybe twenty euro(?) Maybe thirty? I should have noted that. Francesco told us we had gotten a discount based on his good name.

We dropped the fish off at the apartment and this is where the trip to the ceramic town in my last post fit into the day.

On the way back I was attempting to practice some Italian and one of my sentences was to inquire if wine needed to be purchased.  I think he caught the gist by the third repetition.  The one phrase I have practiced and gotten good at is “Lo dico correttamente?”, “Am I saying that correctly?” I think sometimes this is the first point they realize I was attempting to speak Italian in the original sentence.  

We did need vino so he took us to a wine shop nearer to the town center.  There, an old man extolled in Italian, the values of three bottles of wine coincidently at the top of our price range.  This was more expensive, again I don’t remember how much.  Maybe as much as sixty.  I am almost always willing to spend more money on wine.  It was a great experience.  All three wines were really good.  The Nerdist ended up really liking Primitivo, a grape common only in Apulia vintages so she discovered a new favorite to ask for that night.

Next we were in the car to a fresh market.  Fruits and vegetables.  Almost everything in there had been raised within a couple of kilometers and picked fresh that morning.  The produce was stellar.  Perfect.  Every single bit of it. Most of my travels have been to bigger cities where they have more, but smaller versions of this type of produce market.  The quality and variety of what they had was greater and higher quality than I have ever seen.

I loved this whole experience of going to these places with the chef.  Generally I show up at the class and everything had been obtained, it’s time to cook.  Seeing where the food comes from and seeing how perfect and fresh it is.  Seeing what to pick out and learning what things were the best  really added value.   At all of these places he seems to be well known.  Another one of Francesco’s side hustles is as a private chef.  People hire him to come into their homes to cook for events.  Not totally _Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous_, but it sounded like he has had a few pretty classy gigs.

This year I have taken two cooking classes, both of them taught by men named Francesco.  Their teaching styles could not have been more different.  Francesco The First gave a short demo and then we did all the work.  His contribution was to look over our shoulder and say “Perfecto! You professional!”.  But Francesco The Second here in Taranto talked and taught while he prepared the meal.  My hands at no point touched food.  The Nerdist was assigned the task of pealing the shrimp.  One thing we learned, shrimp that fresh peal much easier.  Much different than what we get in the midwest.

The tomatoes we purchased were beautiful.  Perfect red, fresh and naturally ripened.  We were creating a sauce and so the first step was to cook them in a covered pan.  Once they were cooked he used a hand blender to turn them to a sauce and had us taste it.  They were delicious.  But he said, wait.  Then he pressed the sauce through a fine sieve to remove all the skins.  I couldn’t believe how much that changed the flavor.  They were much sweeter.   Francesco explained most stomach issues people have with tomatoes are caused by the skins.  Sieving like this makes it easier to digest.  Interesting. 

A little surprising was Francesco’s cavalier attitude toward cross contamination.  When I am cooking I am very, very conscious of what cutting boards, plates and knives have touched raw meat or any type of protein.  Paranoid, actually.  Anything that has, I wash with soap.  His attitude was to just rinse things off with water.  Only use a small amount of  soap in final cleanup.  He thinks soap sticks to everything and flavors the food.  

I never wash my coffee cup with soap for the same reason.  *I think* it tastes like soap for a few cups after it is washed.  I guess I see his point.  The produce in Italy is so fresh, and has so much flavor, maybe adding traces of soap would stand out.  Will it change how I cook?  No way, I would be scared of food poisoning someone.

Americans eat nothing like Italians.  So much food and spread over hours.  Francesco continued to provide great conversation.  The first course was shrimp.  They had just been caught that morning.  I have never had shrimp this good before in my life.  They were so incredibly tender.  Delicately seasoned to really highlight the shrimp flavor itself.  There was so much flavor!  A ribbon of a thick, balsamic vinegar to swish them though.  Outstanding! My favorite dish of the meal.

Before I start I am going to preface this whole thing by one statement.  I have eaten calamari, in the midwest, a few times.  I hadn’t been a fan.  I am glad we cooked them as part of the class.  I feel like I have now eaten them at their absolute best.  Still I didn’t care for it.  I don’t understand the appeal.  But that’s a *me* thing.  If you enjoy this type of seafood you are going to love this class because the food quality is so outstanding.  

Second course was a pasta with the sauce from the roasted tomatoes.  Some large tube (Calamarata) pasta along with some of the squid.  The sauce was delicate and sweet.  Now I wonder.  When Francesco had us taste the sauce to decide if we should remove the skins, the skinless tasted much better off the spoon.  But once mixed with the pasta?  I bet I made a mistake there.  I bet coupled with pasta it is important to have that little extra punch the skin flavor contributes.  I will do some research this summer.

Third was a baked calamari with red and yellow peppers.  We made the pankko from some bread on hand.  Again, so much better than we buy boxed from the grocery store.  My second favorite dish, it also had the thick balsamic around the edge.  

Radicchio is no cabbage!  There seems to be 
three different styles, from what looks like purple
romaine to this which Francesco says is the best. 

There was actually a fourth course but we had to surrender at the end of the third.  Francesco announced it was siesta time.  A great idea!  We reconvened at nine joined by Francesco’s girlfriend for dinner.  Salmon steaks with a side of baked radicchio, a vegetable I have never seen in America.  I expected it to taste like a cabbage and it did not.  It is actually in the chicory family.  I liked it a lot.  The salmon, a touch heavy on fennel but otherwise very good.  Very flavorful.

A little of the remaining tomato to
use as a dipping sauce.

For dessert we had a lovely chocolate cake with white chocolate mousse center, along with some scratch made chocolate pudding on the side.  A spritz of whip creme on top and served on plates Francesco had made himself.  It was fantastic.  The perfect wrap up for the night.  I think we had some grappa and then it was just a matter of waddling back into the hot tub for a bit and calling it a night.

I asked The Nerdist the next day, do you feel like we cooked everything we bought?  She said, no, I think we bought more.   So Francesco will lift a fork a couple of days in our honor.  Ah well.

Here is the deal, at some point Francesco is going to be reading this and his blood pressure going up and down the whole time.  But for the rest of you out there, in the end, you have to look at this experience on the whole.  I think you will really enjoy yourself.  Let it flow over you.  Go into it with the perspective of this is going to cost me a little more than what I originally expected.  I admit, my budget is *super* tight.  The extra won’t be outlandish.  You might not even notice.  Sadly I am in a section of my life where I have to.  

I had such a good time.  I just found myself willing to play along.  When I got on the train the morning we left, I was totally exhausted.  Yet realizing I had one of the most amazing, culturally immersive two days of my entire life.  What am I earning money for if not for this?  I think you will feel the same.  

Not Just Your Typical Faceplate

Before I leave the United States I book the BnBs in the *must have* cities.  But then leave a lot of gaps for on the fly decisions.  One of the must haves this year was the city of Lecce on the southern heel of Italy.  This was the very first one I booked six months ago.  Unfortunately the apartment we were staying at in Napoli was booked or I would have liked to have stayed a couple more days.  Instead we had to move, and if we are moving, we decided to just hit the road for another city.  After her long flight and partial recovery, a number one priority of The Nerdist, my travel companion, was a hot tub.  So she found a place in Taranto and we booked the four days between Napoli and Lecce.  

In my mind we would go to Taranto, Lecce, up to Bari to see the tomb of Saint Nicola, the legend that grew to be Santa Claus in the US.  Then a couple of last days in Firenze before heading to Rome to catch our return flights.  It was the night before we were to leave Napoli, over pizza, when she asked, “When are we going to Venice?”

Two years ago I went to Venice and honestly, I didn’t care if I ever went back.  At the time there were not a lot of restaurants open.  It was still early post pandemic recovery in Italy.  The apartment we were in was at water level, it was damp and moldy.  I never do good with mold.  Additionally, the wifi wasn’t working.  I  contacted the host a couple of times she mostly just told me to wait and it would be available shortly.  It never was.  When I marked her AirBnB down a star in my feedback she wrote me a nasty message demanding I change my rating.  It wasn’t nice.  And no, I didn’t.  This being Italy, I couldn’t be positive there wasn’t a contract out for my life. 😀

Additionally, last year I heard several of the canals had gone dry because of a perfect storm of a high pressure cell that settled over the city, the draught, and the annular tide where the sun and moon combine forces to change the tide.  With the water that low, from what people told me, the smell was horrible.  I could believe it.  That was my excuse for not going last year.

So yeah, months back we had talked about going to Venice but honestly, I had hoped she had forgotten.  And maybe, on her own, she might have been fine with forgetting.  But before she left, talking to her mother, she found out her mother had spent some time in Venice when she was young.  She had some stories about it, and unbeknownst to me it had become a focal point of her daughter’s trip.  For mom, we had to change plans.  So I contacted the Taranto BnB from the pizza table, mentioning the plan might be changing and telling him I would confirm in the morning.   He didn’t respond. 

By morning we had it sorted out and I used the AirBnB app to notify him we would be shortening our stay at his place by two days.  Mom, after all, had to be accommodated.  We were on the train early because it was going to be a complicated travel day.  A train to Salerno, a bus to Potenza, then another bus to Taranto.  I sent through the cancellation of two days and it was refused by the AirBnB host.  This is the first time I have had something like this happen.

He then wrote to me and said he had to turn away another booking, so he was losing money and he wasn’t happy.  I totally understand, but I have read the AirBnB rules.  I had the right to cancel that many days out for no charge.  In fact until noon I could even cancel the whole reservation and only have to pay fifty percent for the first day.  We were signed up to take a cooking class from him the second day so I was concerned that our relationship might be soured by this mix up.  How might that class go if he isn’t happy about being shorted?  I offered a cash compromise.   I would pay him ninety euro, half price for his two lost days.

I had a noon deadline with AirBnB to get a full refund and our train was getting close to Salerno.  A deal had to be struck or not.  She was feeling her hot tub hopes drifting away.  I was actually pushing to cut bait and cancel the whole reservation.  I was thinking we could head to Amalfi instead.  Walk the beautiful coastal trails.  Just as we pulled into the Salerno station he answered and agreed to my pay-half-in-cash proposal.  As it turned out, I am glad.  The next two days were the most memorable of this year’s trip.

This is one of those times where just one installment isn’t going to do it.  Oh no, there is another whole part to this story.  But I am going to skip a whole chunk here.  I will try to get that out shortly.

For twenty euro (remember that) our host, Francesco, picked us up at the bus station and brought us back to his BnB. He is an interesting guy who talked constantly.  His spoken english was excellent.  Understanding my spoken english, not so good.  These days technology can bridge that gap.  We are both listeners though, wanting to learn about his life and city so really it worked out very well.  I hadn’t actually looked at the listing when I booked it.  It wasn’t a apartment like we had been getting but instead just a room.  At that, just a room off of his apartment with a separate entrance.  The dreamt about hot tub was beautiful.  

The next day, part of what we did was an afternoon trip to Grottaglie, also known as “The City of Ceramics” about a twenty minute drive away.  In the car, since I have susceptibility to motion sickness, I was riding in the front seat.  Picture this, Francesco, our host, is taking a computer programming class.  He is learning the language of Python.  I mention I am really interested in microcontroller boards (called Arduino and invented in Italy) and he had played with them some too.  We were off.  In deep conversation of programming ideas and past projects.  This conversation, some of it verbal but at other times via google translate.  Sometimes slowing down, when a particular concept was interesting to him, but at other times, fairly flying down a lane-and-a-half-wide Italian country roads, reading a translate message I had just typed to him.  At one point I thought to look into the back seat.  She was wide-eyed.  I figured she’s here for adventure, if we die, we die.

(Quick interesting side note here.  Just as we drove into the city limits of Grottaglie there were a number of police vehicles pulling over every car and checking documents.  In all my years of travel in Europe I have always carried my passport in my pocket.  This is the first time I was asked for it.  I am so glad I had it and won’t ever be tempted to be lazy about that again.)  

What followed once we arrived at Nicola Fasano’s factory was incredible.  We were toured through this amazing old building turning out the finest of Italian ceramics.  It was an such a unique experience to see this up close. At the point we were there, the plates had already been formed.  They were getting their initial coat of glaze.  Then we got to witness the craftsmanship that followed.

It was all work at its very finest.  It really was, and yet it is impossible for me to not center on one particular task.  A worker was seated in front of a turntable.  He put a plate on it and then he was able to spin it, using his hand from below.  Then he proceeded to use a squeeze bottle to draw lines, in glaze, at exactly the same intervals, and at exactly the same thickness, all around the plate.  His coworkers are going to tease him because I single this one thing out.  For all I know there are probably way more difficult tasks they preform.  All of what they do is so incredible.  But to me, looking at it with my naive eyes, I thought this was one of the most amazing displays of craftsmanship I have ever seen.

I loved some of the dinner plate designs with faces.  They had dozens and dozens of these designs.  If I had more room in my life for ceramics this shop would have been a very dangerous place for me.  To have a collection of these, all with different looks and expressions, would be so much fun to have set at a table.  When your guests arrive, the fun of watching who picks out which face.  Throwing that new information into the mix of the never ending analysis of your friends.  Yes, very dangerous indeed.

I have my own picked out.  I am currently eating on divorce plates and that has to be over.  They are white, dipped in yellow and I think they are beautiful.  Simple, vibrant.  I can see some pasta, with the primary red of the tomato, contrasting with the yellow of those plates.  The yellow, warming and bringing out the color of the coarse, freshly shredded parmesan.  The knockout blow arriving in the form of bright green parsley.  It is going to be amazing!  Shipping is expensive.  I think I could bring back two placesets a year in my suitcase, but I already carry so much olive oil.  I haven’t gotten that puzzle figured out yet.  Maybe I will pay to check an extra bag.

At one point we even got to meet the owner.  An older, eclectic, long haired Italian man. He asked me where we were from.  Of all the typically simple questions to answer, this one always trips me up these days.  I got around it by saying she is from Minnesota.  Not really expecting any response other than a vague look.  But to my surprise, he responded immediately, “Oh yes, Minnesota, one of my best customers is from there, Williams Sonoma.”  Wow!  I realized I had fondled his craftsmanship before!

Francesco himself has a ceramics side hustle.  He either bought or built a machine, that is essentially a large scale inkjet printer.  The difference is it dispenses ceramic glaze instead of ink.  A mix of modern and ancient technology he uses a computer to print to clay tiles before firing.  He can put any image onto a tile.  A very cool business.

Another interesting thing I observed.  Converting everything to MPH, at one point we driving along at about sixty.  Francesco is talking and waving his arms around.  We come through a roundabout and suddenly we were behind a car doing forty.  We followed that guy for three or four miles.  At no point did Francesco express the slightest irritation.  Zero.  None.  We were simply driving slower now.  There is no part of America I have experienced where that would be the case.  Impatience up to and including gun play?  Not out of the realm of possibility.

People always want me to politically query the locals.  Francesco was quite happy with his country and its government right now.  From his descriptions he seems to be a wallet based voter.  The economy in Italy, particularly in Southern Italy, has been growing the last two years.  Good for both of  his businesses.  The increase in military activity in and around the area has war ships pulling into port. To him that looks like lots of tourists who could care less about the weight of what they buy.  The perfect customers for a ceramic salesman. 

But Francesco is a hustler.  He mentioned at one point that he had to get our room turned around quickly because he had contacted the people he turned down.   They had immediately booked the days I cancelled.  <cha-ching!>  He had just made ninety euro off renting the same space twice.  When he said it I was looking directly at his face and I saw the shortest instant of “whoops, shouldn’t have told them that” cross his face.  But like any good extrovert he jumped into telling a story and conversation moved on.  What can I do but think, well played?  It was a deal I proposed, I couldn’t be upset it had worked out really well for him. 

The day we left we were exhausted.  Francesco offered to give us a ride back to the bus station, “Twenty five euro, the same as picking you up.”  I didn’t say anything but I did whip out my phone and confirm.  <Cha-ching!>