Florence Cooking Class

It’s hard to believe that our time in Bologna is already over. 4 weeks passed in the blink of an eye. I felt like every day was either packed to the brim or spent recovering physically (lol). I have so many good memories which I would like to share, but I’ll start by sharing what I did during the final 2 days (Thursday + Friday), which I would say is what average weekdays look like.

Thursday (5/27/24): This was the last real class, and I definitely did not miss it because I woke up late 😅. But essentially it was spent working on the final projects for ENGI301, for which we had a few different options for. I created a telegraph Arduino program which translates english to morse code and morse code to english.

After class, I immediately headed to the train station and hopped on board to Florence! I had booked a cooking class there for the afternoon on Viator for 55 euros which was a pretty good deal imo. I had already been to Florence before a couple of times, but it was cool to see the Duomo again.

Anyways one thing I found funny while walking past was a couple of dudes “playing” violin. It was funny because the movement of their bow was so comically out of sync with the sound that if you had ever seen anyone play violin before you could tell that the guys were just faking it and the music was just a recording.

I had some time to kill so I wandered the streets a bit on the way and found myself in a neat library with a cool view of the dome.

The cooking class was a ton of fun. I learned about how to make Tuscan ragu sauce and did some hands-on pasta making. Pasta is surprisingly easy to make from scratch, you only really need flour and egg. Italians in addition to normal flour also use a different type called semolina. When in doubt, put some semolina on there.

We made tortelli, ravioli, and pappardelle. Apparently the order from small to large is tortellini, tortelli, then tortelloni. For long pasta in terms of thinnest to widest it’s spaghetti, fettucine, tagliatelle, then pappardelle. But I might be wrong idk what I’m talking about LOL.

I came here solo but I left with new friends (from Toronto!) :D. I don’t know what Italians put in their tomatoes but the cooked buttered garlic tomatoes were the best I’ve ever had in my life. It was crazy. My mouth is watering still thinking about it. I also definitely got my money’s worth from the unlimited wine. Mom if you’re reading this, I’m kidding.

It was also absolutely pouring on the way back from the station and even though I had an umbrella my shoes and pants still got soaked. Anyways did you know that under the Firenze Santa Maria Novella (Florence train station) there’s like a whole shopping area? Well now you do.

After all that pasta and wine I was craving something sweet so I picked up some Turin dark chocolate from the ODStore (which I’m pretty sure stands for overdose with the amount of sugar in there). It was bomber.

Overall it was a quite a memorable experience. Will I ever cook pasta from scratch back home? Only time will tell.

To end off the day our group had our last dinner together.

Overall this trip was amazing. I mostly used it as an excuse to go explore Italy (don’t worry profs I still learned from your classes). It was full of amazing sights and many new experiences. I wish I was able to get to know more of my classmates better since I was exploring and doing my own thing often, but at the same time I don’t regret anything (except maybe being a dumb tourist and getting pickpocketed).

Huge thank you to Amy for organizing everything and making this unforgettable trip happen (and dealing with the group’s shenanigans lol). Also shoutout to the profs for also planning stuff and still being able to teach in a new environment.

See you guys at Rice.