A week in the life

Well, I'm happy to report I survived my research paper due on Thursday. It was probably the worst display of time management ever seen, yet the most impressive display of words/minute I've ever produced. So, maybe I'm fueling destructive habits, or I'm beating records. Either way, it is finished and I was able to survive the rest of my week! 

Wednesday night in between writing I had my cooking class, hooray! I was especially excited for this class because we were making pizza... it's about time! We were studying the Campania region of Italy (where you find Napoli) so we obviously had to make pizza. Here's our menu:

Let's just take one good look at this Pizza alla napoletana. We made the dough and everything--it's too easy to make,  now I will feel guilty ordering pizza again! 

In case you didn't get a good look before... this one is margherita pizza  but we also made the traditional Napoletana style "pizza alla marinara" with tomato sauce, capers, and anchovies. I was the only one brave enough in our class to try it! (Dad, did you read that?)

Parmigiana di melanzane: If you guessed that means eggplant parmesan then you're the winner today! I've never really had eggplant parmesan (I know, start ragging on me now), but this was pretty delicious! Of course, it was hard to enjoy it as much after 5 pieces of pizza, but no regrets.

Each week we are also given a regional wine to go with our meal... this week I thought Michele was joking when he said we were having beer with our pizza but he sure wasn't! So, Italian beer and pizza it was then!

For dessert, we had pastiera napoletana, or Neapolitan Easter Pie! This cake is super popular around Eastertime but really Michele says it is sold year round as it is a super popular cake! We made our classic pastry recipe we've used almost every week now and filled it with a filling of ricotta cheese, sugar, eggs, mixed candied peels (like orange, lemon, lime) and grano cotto, which is basically grains soaked in milk and sugar (it's as gross looking as it sounds)

I liked the cake more than I would but it definitely wasn't my favorite... those Italians love their fruity pastries but it still definitely isn't my thing. (Also, the candied peels look like peppers so that is just weird)

Michele made a special treat for us with this extra dessert called Zeppole-- FINALLY a fried pastry! They were super easy to make and topped with a cherry (and usually pastry cream but we didn't have time to make that). When I asked Michele what kind of cherries they were he literally popped one in my mouth to shut me up... oh love of Italians!

Today we had a make-up day of classes from Monday but it turned out to be a lovely day anyway. My philosophy class met at the Museo Galileo which I definitely would not have adventured to on my own, but it turned out to be an awesome museum! Many of its pieces were of a private collection of the Medici family, but they were moved to this museum years later. They have an impressive collection of early globes and other thing-a-mabobs (let's be real, they were all just shiny and impressive, I didn't know what most of them were). However, don't get me wrong, it was a cool museum and we had a great tour guide who gave us lots of insight to the history of astronomy and astrology and Galileo's role in it.

Lastly, today I went on an adventure to the Enoteca Bacco Nudo. My friend had told me her family visited this store, which sells "loose wine". Basically, they bottle the wine right there in front of you! You can bring whatever bottles you have, or they give you a bottle and you can bring it back for them to refill. I thought the whole concept was pretty cool so I adventured to find this place and went into a whole new neighborhood I hadn't explored before. Just two blocks past my grocery store is a whole pocket of Florence which is void of tourists and filled with neat stores and Italian families... it was wonderful! Besides the ever-awkward language barrier, I got myself a lovely 3.50 bottle of wine (it will be 3 next time when I bring the bottle back!) and am looking forward to exploring that part of town more! We only have one month left of classes as of yesterday (CRAZY) so I want to be sure to take advantage of Florence as much as possible... I'm looking forward to a weekend here to relax and take it all in!