Sorrento- Last Day

Today we went to the market with Chef Biagio. First stop was a wholesale produce market. They had the largest squash I have ever seen. Imagine the largest zucchini you've ever seen, the kind from which you can make jack-o-lanterns, and triple that. I saw one cut in half and it appeared to have no seeds in the middle, pure orange flesh. We purchased zucchini blossoms which we stuffed in class for dinner.

Next stop was the fish market. This smelled like the ocean, not the stinky smell of fish markets in the States, even with the half sawed swordfish with a hacksaw laying next to it. Chef bought some sardines there.

Last stop was an Italian market. While most of the items there were familiar, I was interested in a particular pasta. Each box came with four pieces, shaped like large flowers. One was a gift pack in which each flower was presented in a clay bowl for baking. The pasta is cooked, similar to precooking lasagne noodles, and then stuffed to make up the flower pedals. This is then baked in the oven in individual clay dishes. If the boxes hadn't been so large and fragile I would have purchased one.

Unable to tour the limoncello factory, I decided to walk the shops in town. I was able to pick up a ravioli cutter, but no gnocchi board.

Upon return, we had our last class. We made stuffed zucchini blossoms- way better than any I've had in the States. The blossoms are larger than I've seen. We were told to remove the stamen, something very bitter that I've tasted in other versions of this dish. We also made braciole (pronounced brigole in old Sicilian), a rolled meat dish stuffed with cheese, parsley, pine nuts, garlic and raisins. This is then browned and braised in tomato sauce. DALLISCIOUS! (Finally something on this trip worthy of the exclamation, although the octopus was worthy. I haven't had my dalliscious hat ready. No one here knows of it, or gets it.) To go with the braciole, we made bucotini (buco means hole in Italian) pasta. This is not the known version that is like long spaghetti with a hole through the center like a drinking straw. Instead the dough is rolled into a long rope and chopped like traditional gnocchi. Each piece is then wrapped around what looked like a piece of coat hanger or some type of thin skewer and rolled until smooth. When removed from the coat hanger the pasta has a hole through the center. It looked more like castellane. Some people in class had problems making these. I think they, two sisters from Manitoba, just had too much wine at lunch as they were also particularly giggly.

We didn't make dessert this class. Apparently there was an afternoon class that made gelato and that was dessert. I'm pleased that my last class here in Sorrento was a particularly tasty one!