The Frazzled Chef Goes to Cooking School – Part 1

Although lately my cooking escapades have been proceeding quite well and without (major) incident, I recently decided it was time for the Frazzled Chef to add some formal cooking credentials to her long and distinguished list of culinary accomplishments. Most of those culinary “accomplishments” are eating accomplishments rather than cooking ones, but really, there’s no need to get nit picky about it.

And so it was decided: the Frazzled Chef would go to cooking school!

But where? It wasn’t as if the Cordon Bleu was knocking down my door, wanting me to be one of their pupils…

Taking into consideration the fact that my daytime job and my various other commitments don’t leave much free time for cooking classes, I decided that I would have to wait until my vacation rolled around before I could get a taste of cooking school. And where was my vacation planned for this year? Oh yes, two lovely countries called Spain and Italy. Ever heard of them? Thought so.

After a week of hopping around Spain with my dear friend Jordan, my travels took me back to my Italian home, Siena. Having worked in the campo turistico (the tourism field) right there in Siena, I knew of a couple cooking schools around town. Apparently tourists liked to come to Tuscany not just to eat and drink, but also to cook.

Not having had the chance to take a cooking class while I was living there, I decided to use one of my precious few days in Siena to attend the city’s first (and finest) cooking school, the Scuola di Cucina di Lella.  The wonderful Lella Cesari Ciampoli is the school’s owner, founder and teacher. The school, which resides in a centuries-old restructured palazzo near Fontebranda, is cozy and professional. Take a look:

Scuola di Cucina di Lella

Seating area for larger classes.

Lella, very welcoming and professional herself, is a member of the AICI (Associazione di insegnanti di cucina italiana) and a member of the International Association of Cooking Professionals in Washington, D.C. She’s done television appearances, teaches a variety of different cooking courses specializing in Tuscan cuisine and has even had a cookbook published in Japan! With my horrific track record in the kitchen, I felt honoured to be one of her pupils – even just for a day.

Trying to be the model student, I psyched myself up for a day at school. My goals? I repeated them to myself as I strolled down the hill towards my destination.  Don’t burn the place down, don’t spill anything on the floor, and per l’amore di Dio, don’t leave with goo in your hair! I tried to keep them attainable, but with me you never really know…

I arrived at Via di Fontebranda 69 (the school’s address) shortly before 10am, and was greeted warmly by Lella and her assistant/interpreter Francesca. I soon found out that there would be only two other students in the class that day: a mother-daughter duo from Florida who had also attended a cooking class with Lella the night before. The atmosphere was intimate and after the introductions were made, we got right down to business.

Francesca and Lella getting down to business.

Laid out on each of our cooking stations was a thin stack of papers, on which was written the day’s menu:

Pappa al pomodoro ~ Thick Tuscan tomato soup

Ravioli ripieni di spinaci e ricotta ~ Ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta

Sugo di carne – Meat sauce

Tagliata di manzo con rucola e grana ~ Beef slices topped with arugula and grana cheese

Budino di riso ~ Rice pudding

By the time I got to the bottom of the list I was salivating. It all sounded delicious! And the best part about it was that after we were done cooking, we’d all sit down and enjoy pranzo (lunch) together, feasting on what we’d prepared.

“Ok ragazze, mettetevi un grembiule e prepariamoci a cucinare!”

Ok girls, strap on an apron and let’s get ready to cook! 

This girl didn’t need to be told twice! (Although technically I had been – first in Italian by Lella then in English by Francesca). I grabbed a white apron emblazoned with “Scuola di Cucina di Lella” on the front and tied it on. God knows my cute little dress needed all the help it could get staying clean in the kitchen with me!

Want to know just exactly how my class went? Well, check back soon for Part 2 of the Frazzled Chef’s adventures at cooking school!

Follies of a Frazzled Chef: When Life Gives You Lemons…

…Make spaghetti al limone!

That’s spaghetti with lemon sauce, for those of you who didn’t quite make the leap there.

Yes, the Frazzled Chef was at it again, this time in a spiffy new grembiule (apron) that her dear friend gave her for her compleanno (birthday). And what’s a chef without an apron?!? Well, one very messy disaster, if you’re me.

But, I digress. Back to the pasta!

Lemon pasta can be made various ways. The first time I tasted it, it was penne al limone and it had been prepared by my Italian professor. This prof of ours wasn’t the stuffy, boring kind of prof you sometimes have the displeasure of trying to learn from. Oh no, this prof knew his way around the kitchen just as well as he did the classroom. He spoiled his students at the end of each term with a dinner at his place. The cena was always buonissima and the serata was always a pleasure to attend. (Grazie, D!) Twice he made penne al limone for us, and I loved it.

I’ve never had the pleasure of eating any sort of pasta al limone anywhere else, but my luck was changing. While leafing through one of his cookbooks,  I stumbled across Canadian chef and TV host, David Rocco’s recipe for spaghetti al limone. Naturally,  I just had to try it.

So out came the mixing bowls and on went the snazzy new apron. Spaghetti al limone seemed to be a pretty simple affair which required only fresh squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest, grated cheese, a few herbs and of course, the spaghetti. Semplice, or so I thought.

To set the mood and to help me to channel my concentration, I made sure I had an Italian playlist all queued up and ready to go on my iPod. A touch of the button and Andrea Bocelli’s voice was filling my kitchen, creating just the right atmosphere of Italianness that I needed to get going. While he sung on about how he missed someone  in Mi manchi (a beautiful song) I started hacking lemons in half and squeezing juice out of them until I could squeeze no more. After my cuticles were stinging sufficiently from all the acidity, I figured that I had enough juice, and went on to find some lemon zest.

Mom found me with my head and shoulders in the pantry. I was practically climbing around in there, looking for this elusive “lemon zest”.

“Ma, do we have any lemon zest in here? We’ve got everything else: oregano, thyme, basil, mustard powder, chili flakes…” I backed out carefully to look at my mom for an answer.

She had her hand in front of her mouth and it looked suspiciously like she was trying not to burst out laughing.

“Sarah.” She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Lemon zest? Do you know where lemon zest comes from?”

“Lemons, Ma. Jeez, anyone knows that.”

“Yes, but do you know which part of the lemon it comes from?” She was talking slowly now, as if someone in the conversation didn’t quite understand something.

“No idea. Don’t care. Do we have any though?” I went back to rooting through the cupboard.

“Sarah, you get it from the peel! The PEEL!” she stressed.

“Excellent, Mom!” I turned back to face her. “But I need to know if we have any, not where it comes from!” Now it was my turn to speak slowly, like someone wasn’t quite catching my drift.

“Sarah! Youhavetogratethepeelyourself!” she yelled, exasperated.

“Gratethepeel…?” Just then, a little lemon-shaped lightbulb went on in my head. “Wait, I’m going to put lemon peel in my pasta?”

Mouth closed, mom gave an exaggerated nod. My left eyebrow arched up in question. Mom nodded again. Oh, the wonders of non-verbal communication!

“Fine.” I went to the counter and seized a lemon. “Thank you.” Mom set the grater on the counter for me and walked away. She was probably going to tell the world (i.e. Dad, my grandparents) about our hilarious little exchange. Humph!

I went back to my work with 100% seriousness. So while the musical stylings of Tiziano Ferro (La differenza tra me e te) swelled through the kitchen, I grated like I’d never grated before. I’d have the zestiest lemon pasta on the planet! After I figured I had enough zest amassed in the little pile on the counter, I dumped it into the lemon juice. It gave a satisfying splash. Then I thought of my next steps: fill a pot with water, don’t spill it as you set it on the burner, turn on the burner and let it boil. Check!

Next I had to finish that sauce. My iPod played on. At this point, I was adding the remaining ingredients and simultaneously doing a heartfelt duet with Fausto Leali to Ti lascerò. (Did you folks know I was multi talented?) I was belting out Ana Oxa’s part with all my heart as I added the grated cheese and herbs to my lemon juice and zest. I stirred in big, slow, sweeping motions in time with the music.

“…Lo faccio perchè in te ho amato l’uomo e il suo corraggio…” I started to sway a bit to the music. I sashayed over to the stove and lowered the spaghetti into the now-boiling water.

“…E quella forza di cambiare, per poi ricominciare!” I went back to my mixing, but with more gusto this time; The tension in the song was mounting.

I sat out a few verses so I could muster up all the sultry throatiness my voice could produce. This was it! Almost the end!

“Ti lascerooò!” Sway, sashay, flick of the wrist!  (See, I was singing, performing and cooking!)

Big ending now! Forza!

“Ti laaasceroooooò!!!’”  Sway, sashay, flick of the— Clang!

My metal mixing bowl clamoured to the floor. Obviously, the sauce went with it.

I’ll bet Fausto Leali and Ana Oxa never had to clean limone sauce off the stage after one of their performances. Humph!

For the record, I quickly re-made the sauce while the spaghetti boiled and it turned out quite well:

Spaghetti al limone

I’d call this a Frazzled Chef success!

Surviving Paris: A Trip Into The Gutter

Welcome back for the 3rd installment of the “Surviving Paris” saga. If my disasterous adventures in Paris are new to you, click here for part 1 and here for part 2 to read how I narrowly escaped death twice in the City of Light. This time, even my Mom couldn’t save me from the perils of Paris.

We’d had a great time exploring, wandering and eating our way through France’s capital city and, after a big day, decided to hit up the Hard Rock Cafe on Boulevard Montmartre for some diner. Two luscious salads (a break from the baguettes we’d been scarfing) and a couple of Cokes later (a rest from all the wine we’d been consuming), Mom and I were out on the Boulevard trying to figure out a way back to our hotel.

After a couple minutes of deliberation, we decided that a taxi, after our long day of using the heel-toe express, was our best option. Alors, back into the Hard Rock and towards the hostesss I went to ask about calling a cab.

“There is a taxi stand right across the road, madame. That is the best way to get a taxi around here.”

“Excellent. Merci!” Mom and I steered ourselves in the direction the girl pointed and were happy to find that there was indeed a taxi stand just down the road from the restaurant.

Malheureusement, there was nary a taxi to be seen.

We waited. Cars zoomed past.

And waited. Horns honked. Not at us, unfortunately.

And we waited some more. Parisians raised their eyebrows as they passed us on the sidewalk.

In most cities, you wouldn’t think that hailing a cab on a Wednesday evening in October would be very difficult. It wasn’t raining, and  it wasn’t terribly cold (yet), but not one taxi pulled into the stand.

Now, any one who knows me knows that I’m a take-charge kind of girl. And I’m terribly, painfully, frustratingly impatient. At this point, Paris had exhausted my patience, and I decided to take matters into my own hands.

“Mom, I will hail us a cab,” I declared, distancing myself from the stand. ”Don’t you worry!” Like I’m some sort of cab-hailing superhero, right?

So I set off down the road to what I had decided would be a more advantageous spot from which to snag a cab. It’s not that there weren’t any cabs on the street. Au contraire! There were a ton of cabs, but they were all filled with people whose cab catching skills were obviously superior to my own.

I raised my arm and waved. I motioned for cabs to come my way. I tried to make eye contact with passing cabbies. I promenaded slowly up and down the sidewalk, each passing cab representing a dashed hope in my now chilly and very frustrated little traveller’s heart. As my frustration mounted, so did Mom’s amusement with the whole situation. From her post at the taxi stand, she watched me walk back and forth, forwards and backwards along the edge of the sidewalk for probably 15 minutes before catastrophe struck.

Finally, a vacant taxi turned the corner onto the Boulevard and started to drive slowly in our direction. Naturally, I started to wave and walk backwards towards my Mom, never taking my eyes off of the long-awaited cab.

The cabbie looks up and sees me. My heart flutters. Finalement!

I launch into one final flurry of exaggerated waving. Mom applauds my success. The cab drives towards us.

I continue to walk backwards (not a good idea) towards Mom, the whole upper half of me positively shaking with the force of my—Oof!!!

And there I am, mesdames and messieurs, yours truly,  sprawled on my back in a Parisian gutter after having lost my balance and fallen un-elegantly and very ungracefully off the curb. It was the flurry of exaggerated waving that propelled me over the edge, I’ll bet.

“Sarah!”

“Unh…” I lay in the gutter, thinking about how ridiculous I must look with my arms and legs and hair all akimbo, my scarf covering half my face. I send up a silent grievance to the Travel Gods.

Why me? Why this? Always me! Always something!

“What are you doing down there!? How did you do that!?” I can hear the laughter threatening to break through her voice at any moment.

I shrug, as nonchalantly as I can manage. Then I start laughing too.

Just before I make a move to get up, (still laughing, by the way) a little old man on a bicycle pedals towards the edge the sidewalk and peers over onto the road, curious to see what Mom’s looking at. When he sees me, his caterpillar-like eyebrows shoot up so fast I fear they might lift right off of his wrinkly little forehead. He shakes his head at the ridiculous scene and pedals on.

Paris 3. Sarah 0.