I woke up and miserably dragged myself to italian, struggled hardcore through that and then headed to to market to make myself some evgolemono soup that yiayia gave me the recipe to in hopes of shaking off this cold. I was thinking of sharing buttttt I think that may go against some type of Tsickritzis code of ethics. And its way cooler to keep it secret anyway :). Like I've previously mentioned, the food at the central market is insanely fresh, so I was pumped to get the ball rolling on my soup, which in fact I'd been dying to cook forever. First things first, I went to one of the multiple butcher stands to get my "whole chicken" the recipe calls for. At first the man at the counter tried to understand me, but ended up finding a colleague who was better able to communicate. I told him I wanted a whole chicken, and before I had a chance to debate whether I should just stick with chicken breast, he had one by the neck and chopped its head right off. For the first time in my life I understood what "weak in the knees" truly meant. I think I must have turned white, because he asked me if I was okay before removing its heart and wings or whatever else it was that he started throwing behind him.
He was actually really nice about it, and was helpful in making sure that it looked as much like food as possible before wrapping it up and handing it over. The whole chicken and a half a dozen eggs ran me a minor heart attack and only 7 euros. Not too shabby. I then picked up carrots, celery and basmati rice to add.
At noon I headed to wine tasting class, where the buzz started up about the pope resigning. Well, yes the pope IS resigning, and we are GOING TO ROME this weekend. Which houses the vatican city. Where the POPE is. cool. freakin. beans.
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| This guy. |
We began trying to identify the "bouquet" of the wines we tasted in class. Everytime the teacher opens up a bottle of wine he literally sticks the cork up his nose, so it was about time we learned how to get in on the action. My favorite was a moscato that was sweet, but not in a sickening way. We picked out smells of peaches, bubblegum, elderflower and pineapple. If all those things got together and had a baby, it would be this wine. So yum! Sweet wines stay sweet because the fermentation process is cut off, and some of the sugars remain without turning into alcohol. In some of the red wines, there were "woody" flavors, which we learned is because the barrels they are made in are "toasted" to enhance the wood flavor. Cool huh? He literally just spews out facts for 2 and a half hours and I sort through what I can get. Those were two of the best from the day, next to that tannins are created from the seeds and stems of the grapes....and that tannins are the chemicals that give you a drying sensation in your mouth. This is good review actually.....
Moving on, today, Lorenzo de Medici students had the opportunity to sign up for clubs. I wanted so badly to join cooking club, but unfortunately it filled up before I could do so. One of the few left is the "Slow Drink club", so I went ahead and signed up for that.
"The slow drink club helps students discover, understand and experience and important and sometimes misunderstood aspct of the Italian everyday life and culture: the art of drinking. This "art" will be shown from a critical and responsible perspective, through an historical and technical explanation about the meaning of wine in the Mediterranean culture, as well as practice fieldwork tasting experience." We'll have to see how that goes, but it sounds interesting enough right?I then headed back to the apartment to begin my soup.
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