Under the Tuscan... fog?

Today was my Food Cultures field trip to a vineyard and farmhouse in Chianti (Tuscan region) to tour and learn about the wine process, have a wine and cheese tasting, and then learn how to make traditional Tuscan food.
We met at Piazza Italia around 6:30am for the bus which was pretty nice considering I was still half asleep and the comfy seats were very welcome. The bus drove for a good hour and a half before making a random stop at a hotel where we picked up our professor, Peter Fischer, the most random and hilarious German man ever. Lindsay and Zach, two Umbra staff members had met us earlier and were the ones accompanying us on the bus. After picking Peter up, we made another stop in order to get breakfast and coffee in a little town before climbing the hills up the where the vineyard was. My little group wandered off and found a little bar where we got cappuccinos and I got a tasty apple strudel (brioche). We were a little late meeting back at the bus, but soon we were off. The vineyard was way up in the hills and the bus ride there made me a little dizzy. It was really foggy all morning and most of the pictures I took looked like we were up in the clouds, but the fog lifted only a short while after the tour of the vineyard...
Once we got there a woman gave us a tour and explained the fermentation process and the background of their vineyard. It was a pretty big one, exporting a large number of bottles to other countries (most wine in Italy is exported out anyway). Fun fact: Italians prefer common or house wines to quality wines. It is tradition to drink wine that we today consider to be quality wine (i.e. French wine). Italy only recently started producing quality wine and considered as a chief(along with France and Germany I believe). However, despite this, all quality wines are exported out of Italy because Italians don't drink these wines at all.
So we learned about different ways creating, fermenting, and storing wine and then we went into another building where we had the wine and cheese tasting. The vineyard also made their own cheese, mainly from sheep and goats only. The cheese was okay, not my favorite. I tried the wine (by try I mean took a sip). I know that in Italy I am supposed to do as the Italians do, blah blah. Well I don't like wine at all. I think it tastes like the smell of nail polish remover and it makes me dizzy and sick. Especially red wine, and that is all that we were given. I wandered around and took lots of pictures (of the vineyard and such) instead.
They also had their own olive oil and I considered buying it, it was really good-- but I am afraid of bringing bottles home in my checked bags.. since the whole flying laws with liquids... so dumb.
Anyways. After the wine and cheese tasting we got back on the bus and drove some more and got to this cute little farm house in the middle of tons of vineyards. Once there we were handed aprons and instructed to split up, there were tons of different rooms in which we would learn how to make each of the different courses (don't worry mom, they also gave us a print out of all the recipes!!) So we dashed into the ravioli and tiramisu room (who wouldn't) where we learned how to actually make and press pasta (which was a lot of fun) and then we made spinach ravioli. Margaux and I had some issues with the spinach ravioli.. after you press the pasta and have it in front of you with the spinach, you apply this egg paste so the pasta will remain secure. Once you do this you have to get all the air out of the pasta so that when it cooks they don't burst. Well, easier said than done. Oh well, they tasted absolutely delicious when they were done!

(pressing pasta)
(our gnocchi before it was cooked)
(the finished product.. so good!)

Other people in the room were also making tiramisu which I briefly watched but they made it so fast (apparently it wasn't hard at all) so I didn't have much to do after we were pressing the pasta. After we were done in that room, they sent us upstairs where we learned how to make gnocchi. The dough was already made for us, all we had to do was cut it, roll it, cut them into small pieces, and then roll them with forks to make that weird indentation that gnocchi usually has. It was easy and a lot of fun, they came out really well-- and tasted really good too :)
Moving on, we learned how to make some toppings for cristini which is like bruscetta only the bread wasn't toasted... there were 4 different types: pomodori (tomatoes), melanzane (eggplant), pepperocini (peppers), and broccoli (I should look up that one..) They were really really good, especially the eggplant and the broccoli one-- which Margaux actually made all by herself after the guy said two words to her in italian and then whisked her away randomly. Before that we had chopped so much garlic that I think it is in my blood stream and definitely going to be seeping out of my pores for the next week.
After all the cooking and prep work we headed outside to wait for the people in the farmhouse to cook our (somewhat disastrous looking) pastas and food. We played with the kittens that were outside and enjoyed the nice weather.
Then lunch.. also my dinner and probably breakfast for tomorrow! was served. We had water, wine, the cristinis, spinach ravioli, gnocchi, chicken (which we didn't make), potatoes (which were amazing and we found out the recipe for from the chef since it wasn't on the sheet), eggplant parmasean!!, and then the tiramisu... by the time the tiramisu came I was so full. But everything was amazing! I can't believe we made all of those things (well most of them). Our professor would randomly wander around and talk to us as we were eating, he is hilarious and a great guy- it was a lot of fun. After eating we went outside to lay in the sun and try to digest. They also gave us coffee but I couldn't force myself to get up to get it. It was such an amazing day... Peter Fischer kept joking with us that we were going to go right back in and start with the first course and eat it all again and we all groaned.. but it was amazing food.

(my friends and I with our hilarous professor
who was pointing to the water because
he told us to tell our parents that he encouraged the drinking of water)

So after we are all about to burst, Peter Fischer tells us we have to get up and digest by walking... for ten miles-- we all look at him like he's crazy, which he very may well be- and head to get our coats. The bus is waiting for us outside but he tells us to keep walking up the hill on the main road. It was actually good that we walked because it does help with digestion... plus the views were gorgeous!
There were tons of vineyards and little farm houses and towns off in the distance. We walked way up the hill and kept turning around to see the bus randomly following us-- obviously Peter was up to something. So we keep going (it was definetely not ten miles though) to the very top of this one hill into a small town and we see this giant grafitti that says "Wake up and Smile!" and then the bus stops and Peter says "wake up and smile, time to go!"
I really wonder if he does this all the time or if he just randomly found it on the last field trip, because my roommates definetely did not mention this- and it was so bizarre. But anyway, we got on the bus and headed home. It was a long day of food food food, my favorite kind of day ever.
I love the food in Italy so much, everything is so fresh and amazing, I know that despite what the Italians say, if I tried to make any of these recipes at home they will never taste as good as they do here. But at least my cooking skills are improving :) And now I can't wait to try to make some fresh pasta at home! (a ton more pictures from my trip are on my yahoo photo page, so go check them out!!)
The rest of this weekend will be spent studying for midterms and planning my parents' visit and my weekend trip to London! Hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!
Ciao!