“a sparkly taste”

“I think we do lecture another day,” Karin suggested as she led us through the streets of the city center on our food tour of Mercato Centrale. “Today we do wine and gelato.”

This is the Italian way, and I am not mad about it at all.

Everyone here has a way of translating their native language into such charming, uniquely-phrased English that I absolutely love. When Karin took us to get gelato (instead of going back to class for an olive oil lecture), she told us: “wine must persist, olive oil must persist; gelato you must taste and it goes away.” She explained that good gelato doesn’t leave you wanting or thirsty, and it doesn’t linger or coat your mouth. And she’s so right. You taste, and it goes away. Then you taste again.

Our chef instructor Sara told us this week that a chef knows nothing without knowing her ingredients, and “how they arrive”. She told us that sourcing and eating local food not only helps maintain biodiversity but helps “make a dish with soul and story”. She said that you want your food to have “a sparkly taste”, and that “you have to remember what you eat”.

I can’t get enough of these little nuggets of wisdom, especially when they come from a culture of people who truly love and value food.

Week two brought our first week of restaurant shifts, and my first-ever chef’s jacket. More Italian laundry struggles. Osso buco, eggplant, and so much seafood. Another delicious food market tour. A doctor’s appointment for a post-covid cough that won’t quit. Cold brew coffee (!!!). And more fun times with these new friends of mine: working together in an Italian kitchen, grabbing aperitivo and glasses of wine that turned into bottles, cooking family dinners at David’s place and playing card games all night. It was another week for the books.

Here’s how it all went down.

the restaurant

I was assigned to the Cibrèo Ristorante and Trattoria for the week (they share a kitchen). Working in a restaurant is notoriously hard work to begin with, whether you’re a chef or a line cook or a dishwasher. Being new to this world, and a strange face in this specific kitchen, didn’t make that work any easier. Now throw in a big ol’ language barrier on top of everything…it made for an interesting week.

The one-sentence summary:
I didn’t do anything terribly wrong, but there was a lot I didn’t do right.

My first day, I cut up eight rabbits into small chunks, but not quite evenly enough. I picked off an obscene amount of parsley leaves from their stems, but not quite fast enough. I hand-grated Parmigiano Reggiano into thin strands for service, but not quite long enough.

I sliced so much hard, crusty bread that my finger went numb, and I kid you not, a week later I still can’t feel the bottom half of it. I sweat my ass off, quite literally (again, and again, and again). Between mounds of finely minced soffrito ingredients and thinly sliced onions and cubed eggplant and chopped garlic, I got my money’s worth of knife practice.

Throughout the week I was given all kinds of tasks, and humbly accepted each one. I de-stemmed and trimmed green beans, I shaved the leaves off stalks of celery, I de-boned and de-skinned severed chunks of fish. I packaged up a plethora of food with the vacuum sealer, from sliced trippa to portioned ombrina filets and giant fish heads. I retrieved desserts from the beautiful pastry kitchen and delivered tartare to the tiny cafe. I got to know some of the cooks (who simply could not believe that I’m 33 years old) and ate delicious, hearty lunches at the end of my shift. I left blistered, cut, sweaty, and splattered in pappa al pomodoro and fish guts.

Most of time I felt like I wasn’t fast enough, or I didn’t know enough, or I was just in the way. But I worked and I watched and I did my best. And here’s what I’ve learned so far…

Don’t bother putting makeup on. You will just sweat it off and stain your nice chef whites.
Knife skills take a ton of practice, and I have a long way to go.
Don’t ever cross your arms or put your hands on your waist in a kitchen. Especially an Italian kitchen.
Being called “honey” and “baby” isn’t inappropriate like it would be in the states; that’s just what you get called when no one knows your name.
Italian sanitizer = a bottle of white wine vinegar.
Restaurant work is hard, fast, exhausting, and constant.
Taste everything.

the recipes

Our cooking technique classes this week centered around two of my favorite things — eggplant and seafood — so I was a very happy girl.

First, we made osso buco: a thinly cut slice of beef shank that includes a cross-section of the bone, with marrow inside. It’s a rich and decadent dish, and the meat came out impossibly tender.

Next, eggplant two ways: melanzane parmigiana and caponata. Both dishes I absolutely love, and love even more after this week. The eggplant parm we made was possibly the best I’ve ever had. Again, everything is so, so simple — but the ingredients are so, so good that they’re able to truly shine. I’m never not making marinara sauce the way I’ve learned to here (although something tells me the tomatoes in America won’t quite suffice).

Then there was seafood day. Anchovies, gurnard fish, mazzancolle and gamberi (types of prawns), scampi, totano (flying squid), vongole and lupini (types of clams) — all local seafood from Tuscany’s waters. We learned how to prep and filet anchovies, and how to clean and gut a fish. We made so many different dishes at one time, creating fish broths and marinades and pastas and risottos for a feast from the sea.

On our tour day, Karin took us to Mercato Centrale: the San Lorenzo Market. We learned about the slow food movement and food certifications. We went to “hidden places” around the market, like a pasticceria with a 93-year-old owner who knows everyone in the city, and a casa del vino with one of the best wine selections in town. We tried more local favorites, like bollito (a boiled brisket sandwich), prosciutto, pecorino cheese, and some of the best calamari I’ve ever had. Oh, and we found actual cold brew coffee in the upstairs food court, which is a huge win in this nearly-unbearable heat.