Our first night at Casa Gregorio we went to a pizzeria for dinner. It should have been a sign of things to come when Gregory ordered 12 different kinds of pizza including the best four cheese pizza I’ve ever tasted. There were also types with sausage, prosciutto, fresh tomato and arugula, grilled vegetables, potato, roasted peppers and so on and so on. Then for dessert we had dessert pizza which was pizza dough with apples, Nutella and powdered sugar. It’s to die for. Jan and I both had two slices, but only ate the Nutella off the second slice. When I get home I will start buying Nutella.
Our first full day was beautiful and sunny and perfect. We drove out to an olive farm to taste fresh olive oil. Driving through this countryside, almost every house has a field filled with olive trees, grape vines, sheep or goats. There is almost always a dog lying in the driveway, and someone in the field working. The houses are old, and some look like they are held together with two by four and wire, but they are unapologetic and beautiful to look at. Our host at the olive farm was named Vincenzo, and he is quite possibly the most gorgeous human being I’ve ever seen in real life (besides Trevor of course!). All of us ladies were having a little trouble. Gregory said it happens with every group, and that Vincenzo is completely oblivious to the whole thing. It’s mind boggling.
He let us taste his olive oil, and explained how to tell the freshness of the oil (you taste it like wine, and if there is a peppery after-taste that means it’s fresh). He also said that if you see green olive oil in August, it is dyed that colour because real oil turns colour over time, and would be yellow by the end of summer. Vincenzo also makes wine, and he took us out to his field and introduced us to his father who was there pruning and tending to the vines. Vincenzo seemed very proud of his father, who we could see was very knowledgeable about growing grapes. Later we had a lunch at Vincenzo’s house, that was simple and delicious, and consisted of bread and prosciutto, grilled vegetables in olive oil, bruscetta, frittata, garbanzo bean balls, bean soup, cheese, home made wine, and apple turnover for dessert. Vincenzo’s mother made the entire lunch, and she was very humble and sweet, even when we tried to thank her for the meal. The apple turnover was unbelievably good.
After leaving Vincenzo, we went and visited the old town of Arpino, where “Cicero’s Tower” is located, and there is a spectacular view of the surrounding hilltop towns. Arpino also has a very old arch, predating the Roman arch that is one of very few still standing. These towns are almost surreal in their quaintness, and I have to keep reminding myself that this is everyday life, and not a movie set for a period romance. I want to take pictures of everything. I walked up one of the streets where flower boxes lined the windows and the stone shone gold in the afternoon sunlight. It makes you wonder how much has really changed here in 500 years.
Later that afternoon, we had our first cooking class with our chef Justino. Justino is very sweet, and we all liked him immediately. We made several different pastries in this class that we would eat for dessert that night. None of them were difficult, and we had a lot of fun making them. We made biscotti, fruit tarts, Nutella cookies, and jam tarts. They were all delicious. For supper we had spinach and ricotta ravioli and grilled turkey cutlet buried under a pile of lemony, peppery arugula topped with tomatoes and parmesan.
During our stay, Gregory finished the new kitchen that will become the cooking class location. He and his staff worked til all hours getting it ready for our arrival so that it could be used by us. Our next class was the first in the new kitchen. But I’ll get into that in the next post…
Ciao for now!
