Global Crossroads Study Abroad Blog

On Friday April 13th, we had our last cooking class for our Sustainable Foods class at Sergio’s house. This rainy, gloomy day provided the perfect atmosphere for staying inside and cooking. We began with our usual morning cornetto and caffe, and then really got going. We all separated into our groups and started to work on the 3 different dishes. One of the groups went to the stove-top to start frying the bread for our appetizer. While they busy with that, some of us started to work on the ragu sauce for the main dish. 

It mainly consisted of grinding up tomatoes again into a puree and heating it up on the stove with our lamb meat, a bit of olive-oil, and a sprinkle of rosemary and fresh mint. After those things were completed, we moved on to the most exciting part of this day: learning how to make home-made pasta. This was especially fun because Fiore took us step by step through it and even let us use the guitar to cut the noodles! It is a very long process for making the pasta so I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say that I will be making fresh pasta when I get home.

Making the dessert

Here are the final products of our final cooking class:

First, the appetizer, Crostini alla Chietina contains a fried breaded bottom layer topped with a layer of butter and an anchovy wrapped around a spicy caper. I am not big on anchovies or capers so instead I just ate a plain piece of the bread.

Next, we ate the main course, which was the Maccheroni alla Chitarra. This was homemade maccheroni pasta with a creamy tomato lamb ragu sauce. It was absolutely wonderful and I am saving this recipe to make when I get home.

Finally, we were able to enjoy our desserts! This pastry is called Fiadoni, and like I wrote earlier, is a crispy pastry dough outside with a light cinnamon custard filling and topped with powdered sugar. It was wonderful and rounded off the meal perfectly.

After this magnificent lunch, we goofed around with the pasta guitar and pretended to play it like a musical instrument. It is clearly not an instrument but we thought it was funny nonetheless.

The next morning, Saturday, we were off to the region of Abruzzo in Italy. The bus ride took about 3 hours but we had some very picturesque countryside to view on the ride there.

The drive to L’Aquila

We first arrived in the city of L’Aquila, where an earthquake destroyed the entire area three years ago. The city has since been trying to rebuild and reinvent the area but many people have already moved out of L’Aquila and don’t plan on coming back. The streets are eerily quiet and the wind howls through the empty, dusty buildings of the town. It wasn’t the nicest of days and the dark cloudy skies continually looked like they wanted to downpour. The architecture professor, Tom Rankin, took us on a tour to look at how the city is rebuilding and to explore the differences between the ancient architecture that still stands and the new modern buildings in progress.

After finishing up in L’Aquila, we finally arrived at our Agriturismo in Abruzzo where we would be spending the night. After setting down our bags, we all immediately hurried off to the barn to pet and hold some of the animals. The goats were constantly trying to eat my jacket but the lambs were so calm when we picked them up. We were able to see the machines that milked the goats and watched them respond to the whistles and shouts that some of the farmers bellowed.

In the evening, we ate a wonderful meal made out of the local products of the farm. We were all so tired from the day that we all basically crashed right after the midnight ghost stories in the dark. The next day, Sunday, was absolutely gorgeous and we were finally able to get some nice pictures outside in the countryside.

Countryside in Abruzzo

We had a really nice breakfast of bread with fresh ricotta cheese and homemade fruit jams. Afterwards, we headed over to the barn area where we saw the 2 horses and the 1 donkey that live there. After the animals, we went over to where we would be receiving a demonstration of how they make ricotta cheese on the farm! Thomas, a little boy who lives on the farm with his family, was explaining to another one of the little kids, Maya, that he was going to show everyone how to make ricotta. It is crazy how different his childhood is compared to my childhood in the city, riding bikes downs streets and walking up to the local grocery stores.

After learning the secrets of ricotta, we ended up just taking some pictures for a while in the trees on the farm. Finally, it came time for us to head back on the 3 hour bus to Rome.

Overall, it was a relaxing and informative weekend. It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and finally be able to smell some of that green grass I’ve been missing.

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