la ghiotta

La ghiotta means “the glutton” in Italian. (The feminine version, to be exact). I know this because Karin explained the name of the restaurant to us when she recommended it for a good, quick lunch. “It means glutton, do you know this word?” Oh, I know this word.

It’s me. I’m la ghiotta.

Which is one of the many reasons why, on Sunday, I returned to Italy for the eighth time. This trip, the longest one yet, brings me back to the motherland (I’m 50% Italian, just let me have it) for a summer culinary course in Florence where I’m hoping to deepen my knowledge, sharpen my skills, and grow my experience in all things food and cooking. So much has already happened in seven days.

home for now

This week I got my bearings in a new neighborhood. I ate the best sandwich I think I’ve ever had. I met four new people who came from all corners of the world and somehow never even felt like strangers. I learned how to make traditional Tuscan dishes like Pappa al Pomodoro (tomato + bread soup) and Vitello Tonnato (veal with tuna sauce). I toured Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio, where I reveled in so many local specialties, quality ingredients, and some of the biggest vegetables I’ve ever seen. I hung my clothes on a line outside the window to dry, dropping my underwear three stories down in the process (only to find them waiting for me on the first floor stairs later that day). I sat through 12 hours of a food safety course, in an insanely overly-air-conditioned room where time quite literally stood still. I said lots of things wrong in Italian and probably annoyed a lot of waiters. I walked from one end of the city to the other, and then back, again and again and again. I tasted trippa, the stomach lining of a cow, and lampredotto, its fourth stomach. I picked a sommelier’s brain about all things wine and then drank a little too much of his (spot-on) recommendations. I enjoyed celebratory drinks and aperitivo, homemade lunches with fresh market ingredients, afternoon gelati, and delightful trattoria dinners with new friends. 

It’s safe to say week one was a success. 

the crew

I came into this experience prepared to spend a lot of time by myself, and frankly a little worried about how lonely I’d be. I feel like God was laughing at me a little bit because, cut to Florence: I barely had five minutes of alone time the entire week.

This group came in HOT. We bonded fast, we were quick to make plans (I kid you not, by day two we’d planned an entire weekend trip to the nearest island together), and we basically only separated long enough to go home to our respective expensive Italian airbnbs and suffer through various stages of jet lag each night. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I call us the motley crew because we truly couldn’t be more different. 

Jo: a 26-year-old Dutch entrepreneur who’s about to open her own restaurant in the Netherlands, who wears jeans to the beach, and whom I’ve targeted as my eating buddy because she also likes to try as much of the menu as possible.
Kai: an 18-year-old aspiring chef from Arizona who we refer to as the child prodigy, who’s somehow already been to culinary school, and who leads the rest of us directionally challenged folk through the streets of Florence — sans map — even though he’s the only one that’s never been to Europe before.
David: a 23-year-old chef from Brazil who barely eats, who brought his own knives, who never seems to be on time, and who always wants to keep the party going.
Patsy: a 58-year-old food tech teacher from New Zealand who has like 18 people coming to visit over the next month and a packed day planner that she pulls out anytime we mention doing something together, who cracks us all up (not only with her hilarious one-liners but also with her hilarious kiwi accent), and whom we jokingly and affectionately call “mama” (or “grandma”, depending who you ask — but it’s only funny because she’s so not a grandma). 

They are each smart, funny, talented, impressive, and here for completely different reasons.

Then there’s me: 33, California, mid-career-change, you know the gist. Aside from (unsurprisingly) consuming the most food and eating everyone else’s bread at dinner, I somehow gained the title of the designated travel guide of the group — doing the planning and picking the restaurants and booking the tickets and helping everyone pronounce the embarrassingly few Italian words I know. I keep telling them I am not the ringleader they want, but they don’t seem to be listening.

We are such a weird, funny group, all coming from completely different walks of life. But it works. If you could be a fly on the wall inside our WhatsApp group or at our boozy dinners or during our long walks across the city to and from classes, you’d be one very entertained fly.

the course

The culinary course that brought us all together is run by Schola Academy, a craftsmanship school in Florence, in partnership with Cibrèo, a large group of restaurants owned by the family of the late, well-respected chef Fabio Picci. Most of them catty-cornered in one small section of the city, Cibrèo encompasses Cibrèo Ristorante, Cibrèo Trattoria (aka Cibrèino), Cibrèo Caffè, Ciblèo (a Tuscan Oriental restaurant), and Teatro del Sale — a theater that looks into a beautiful windowed kitchen where they put on shows and private events, and where we have our cooking classes.

The program is a unique blend of culinary classes with chef instructors, seminars and tours and field trips to teach us about the food industry, and shifts working in the kitchens at Cibrèo’s various restaurants. We learn, we cook, we work, we taste Italy.

This week was more about getting acclimated to Florence and to the program, so it was introductory and exciting and fun. We started things off with a quick orientation (where I was the only one to eat a cornetto…thanks for leaving me hanging, everyone). Then we jumped right into our first cooking class with our chef instructor Stefania. We made fresh tagliatelle with authentic Tuscan-style ragù, and one of the simplest and most delicious soups I’ve ever had: a local dish called Pappa al Pomodoro. It’s literally just onion, garlic, tomatoes, basil, and stale bread, and it’s one of the best things I’ve eaten here so far. That right there is what I love about Italian cooking.

We learned about sofrito and the different flours you can use to make fresh pasta. We learned how not to cut tagliatelle, and how the ragù in Tuscany is set apart by the way they very slowly and very thoroughly brown the meat. I did my best to soak in every tip from the chef, remember the mistakes I made and how to fix them, and write down every inch of every recipe in my embarrassing chicken scratch.

In our second cooking class of the week, chef Vasilis (the head chef of Teatro del Sale), taught us how to make one of Tuscany’s most traditional and famous dishes: Vitello Tonnato. It’s very thinly sliced boiled veal that’s covered in a mayo-like sauce made of tuna, eggs, and anchovies. I realize that may not sound appetizing to some of you but trust me…it hits. We accompanied the dish with Piedmonte Peppers as a salty, briney, garlicky vegetable pairing, and I could not get enough of them.

Outside of classes, Karin, the culinary academy coordinator, took us on a food tour of the amazing market steps away from Cibrèo, where we tried all sorts of local delicacies like coccoli (fried dough with prosciutto and stracchino cheese) and fiori di zucca (zucchini flowers). And Frederico, the sommelier of the Trattoria, taught an awesome wine seminar where we learned a ton about European winemaking and, after tasting three wines he picked out for the restaurant, realized that this man is very good at his job.  

Now that we’ve officially been oriented, next week we’ll begin working, prepping, and assisting in the kitchens of Cibrèo’s restaurants. As usual, I have no idea what to expect, but Karin keeps telling us to “still with your eyes”, so my plan is to do that — once I figure out what it means.

the cuisine

Obviously I decided to do this program in Italy for a reason, and I can’t not talk about what I’ve eaten so far. I’ll spare you the play-by-play of every single thing I put in my mouth — I’ve done my best to stick to the top three highlights of the week.

ALL’ANTICO VINAIO

This place has been all over TikTok and I wasn’t sure whether it was a tourist trap. But it was pretty much my first stop in Florence, just to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out the fuss was worth it because I found the sandwich of my dreams: La Paradiso.

The schiacciata bread: soft yet crispy, salty, oily, divine. The mortadella: paper thin and so tasty. The stracciatella cheese: impossibly fresh and creamy. The crushed pistachios: perfect sweet + crunchy addition. The pistachio cream: absolutely unreal and maybe the star of the whole show.

I dropped a huge green blob of it down my leg and onto my extremely new, extremely white sneakers and didn’t even care. Just wiped it off my thigh, licked my fingers, and kept on walkin’ while I devoured that sandwich.

PASTICCERIA NENCIONI

We came here to try the budino di riso on our food tour. It’s a local Tuscan breakfast pastry: a rice pudding tart that’s deliciously flaky on the outside, surprisingly light on the inside, and not too sweet. I loved it and cannot wait to go get myself another one. (The chocolate tarts were obviously very good too…and that macchiato was the best I had all week). Will definitely be back.

TRATTORIA CIBRÈO

This was probably the best dinner in Florence so far, and I’m not just saying that because I’m about to work there. Fresh prosciutto and burrata, chicken liver pâté, one of the most delightful Proseccos I’ve ever tried, a deceptively good spinach soup, amazing pear cheesecake, flourless chocolate cake, crème caramel. Not pictured: chicken + pork meatballs, pappa al pomodoro, spinach lasagna, and the bottle of Vernaccia di San Gimignano that immediately became everyone’s new favorite white wine.

Trip number eight couldn’t be better so far. I hope there will be a ninth, tenth, twentieth time coming back to this place — but for now this ghiotta will soak it all in while it lasts.