Cooking is a part of the "art" theme of this sabbatical. What is more beautiful, after all, than a colorful, well-put-together meal? Leroy and I descended the mountain once more yesterday and found the charming mini-estate named "Villa Ida" in Sorrento to take our first Italian cooking class. Villa Ida is a family compound with an impressive, sprawling mansion now converted into separate apartments for three generations of the Cuomo family (no known relation to Mario and Andrew!) The manicured grounds are a work of art in themselves, and I have never seen such beautiful hydrangeas anywhere. We were introduced to the "staff" (Angela and Angela's niece Roberta and Roberta's father, Charlie) and shown around a bit. Roberta led us to a poolside table with fresh-squeezed orange juice and homemade lemon cake and introduced us to our two classmates. Ilena and Ainsley are a young professional couple from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We hit it off immediately and had a blast together as we cooked and ate.
The class was held in a separate building with a prep area indoors and a commercial six-burner stove outside. After snipping fresh herbs in the garden, we were given tall white chef hats and aprons to enhance our cooking efforts. We followed Angela and Roberta's instructions carefully as we chopped, poured, sliced, and mixed ingredients for a gourmet Italian meal. I thought my arm was going to break as I used a hand beater to mix the meringue for desert. The full menu we prepared was: Fried Zucchini Flowers, Tagliollini Timbale, Meat Skewers, Neopolitan Style Potatoes, and Lemon Tiramisu.
Once initial preparation was done, we were invited by Charlie to visit his wine cellar beneath the manor house. We were shown the barrels and bottles and other equipement used to make wine. It is typical for Italian families to make their own wine for consumption by family and friends. It is not sold commercially and only has a shelf-life of one year (lots of pressure to finish it before it's no good, I guess!) We were given samples of several white and red wines produced from local (Napoli region) grapes.
We returned to the kitchen for the final phases of meal preparation. We assembled the pasta dish, made little shish-kabobs out of chicken, sausage, beef, and bay leaves we picked from the garden, deep-fried the zucchini flowers, and created lemon tiramasu by layering ingredients and coating it all with the local liquer limoncello (rhymes with "lemon jello". Even though Leroy really shines in the clean-up department, he was not allowed to go near the sink. He was the star pupil, though, in my opinion, and finished his work with a skillful flourish. 
Back in the garden by the pool, the cooking staff became wait staff and served up the meal we had created. Italian meals tend to be long, drawn-out social events, and we enjoy great conversation with our new friends as well as the amazing flavors as each course was served. Wine jugs were brought up from the cellar and Charlie made sure each course was paired with an appropriate wine. When dessert was finished, we were presented with a certificate for completing the class. A hand-painted oil jar with spout was wrapped up, along with our aprons, to accompany us as we said our good-byes and went on our way. All in all, it was a fantastic Italian culinary experience!I have become quite fluent in my use of several Italian words. "Ciao" means hello or good-bye. "Buongiorno" means good morning. "Grazie" is thank you. From what I can tell, "prego" can mean almost anything. That's one word for each day we've been in Italy. At this rate, I'll have a couple dozen words under my vocabulary belt by the time we return to the U.S.!
This morning we are attending to the uninspiring but necessary task of laundry. Then we're off on a hike to a place called "Crapolla." I'm not making this up; Google it!
