In the states, when you hear the word 'Bruschetta', you think about toasted Italian bread with a tomato spread. But to think that way would be like thinking the word 'Sandwich' means two pieces of bread with ham, cheese and mayo. It's actually a generic term, and there are all kinds of Bruschetta.
Let's learn how to say it...
Before I go any further, let's get rid of a pet peeve of mine. We'll learn how to pronounce it. Say BROO-SKET-TA.
That's right. It is not BRAH-SHEDA. Now say it again... BROO-SKET-TA. If you can roll that R a little, you are certainly doing well!
What exactly is it then?
Bruschetta is quite simply toast. The word comes from the Italian verb 'brusciare', meaning 'to burn'... or 'to toast', if you will. Bruschetta is made by placing a piece of bread on a grill and turning it every few seconds until it is toasted. Of course, doing it with Italian bread makes it so much more than what we think of as toast! At that point, it is Bruschetta. What you put on top of it from that point forward is completely up to you.
I’m a city boy. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, sheltered from certain realities of life. So when I ate that bacon, I never really considered that a pig grew up, got slaughtered, was cut up and shipped to my local supermarket. To me, the bacon was just bacon. It comes from the supermarket, wrapped in plastic. Of course I knew the process, but I never really had to think of it.
In 1984 I visited Soriano and met Paola. Her parents were ‘play farmers’, meaning they lived in town, dad had a normal job, but since they had this old family farm, they would go down in the afternoon and take care of the garden.
An amazing rolled pasta with cheese, Besciamelle and prosciutto dish my mother-in-law in Italy used to make on Sundays every once in a while. When we knew Rotolo Rose was for lunch, nobody was ever late... period!
Translation
Rolled Pasta with Prosciutto, Besciamelle & Cheese
Easily one of the most popular recipes we do in our cooking classes, I thought this would be a great recipe to share on the blog. Don't think this is like any roasted chicken you have had at home. It will certainly spoil you rotten. If you are cooking for others, this never fails to impress!
Our future guests often ask me what our tours are going to be like, and I try to explain the feeling of ‘family’, and how it is so different than anything else out there. Oddly, it is a difficult thing to explain, especially since our future guests are little more than strangers on a phone line at first. But it is without question the number one reason for our success. After all, we get countless of word of mouth bookings. With all that is going on in the current economic meltdown and the fact that the travel industry is suffering so terribly, we aren't feeling it at all. In fact, we are showing a 56% INCREASE over last year because of it.
So today I think I managed to find the best way to explain that sense of family. Not by explaining what it is like during the tour, but how it has changed our lives after tours. Here it is:
I came back to the US after the 2008 season last October. Four and a half months have passed since. In that time, we have not only stayed in contact with many of our past guests, but have seen them, stayed with them, and partied with them. Here is a rundown:
7 months, 17 tours, 56 cooking classes, 144 guests and over 35,000 miles of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio are behind us.That was the 2008 season for us at DiscoverSoriano.As with last year, after coming back to the US, I have gone into video mode.Here is the first video I have made since coming back, which essentially sums up the season:
What a wild ride it was.It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work…. but always very rewarding.Most of all, we made a ton of new friends and had the opportunity to share something we love with so many new people.
For my first video post in a while, I thought I would start with a cool little video compilation made of some of the video I shot during some of the cooking classes we had earlier in the season.This video concentrates on 3 groups we had in May and June of 2008 -- I’m not sure why I didn’t break out the video camera for more groups.
16 days to go before I make my trek to Italy for 5 months this year, but our tours have started. Fortunately, so that I could get some last minute work done and finish coaching our son's baseball team, Paola went over ahead of me for our first tour of the year.
Scott & Michelle (from Texas), and Don & MaryAnn (from Washington) are our guests for this week that ends tomorrow. They have chosen to do a somewhat custom itinerary that more or less mixes some of the highlights from other itineraries we offer... making it somewhat intense: Rome, Florence, Cortona, up into Umbria, etc. etc.
To my utter pleasure, Michelle has a Blog where she has been posting daily trip reports. It's a great read! Have a look.
Last week Paola wanted to teach Alyssa, our 18 year old daughter, how to make Ceci Soup. She was saying it was so easy that she could do it blindfolded. As we laughed at her, she insisted that she could, so I ended up betting her $100 that she couldn’t. What started out as a stupid little bet turned into an evening of intense laughter and family fun.
We found a sock, blindfolded Paola and she went to task as I filmed her. While it all went quite well, she failed to consider a few potential pitfalls. For one, at our house here in Florida, we have a flat electric stove. Finding the buttons was an exercise of trial and error. Additionally, she had some trouble finding rosemary, and finally learned that Paprika and Marjoram smell more or less the same.
In the end, with almost no help at all, Paola pulls it off. More importantly, we had a week’s worth of laughter in an evening… and some great Ceci soup!
Those of you that know us from our cooking classes and tours in Italy will get a chance to see Paola do her thing at our winter home in the States.
I only hope you have as much fun watching this as we did making it. We’re even talking about make this a regular thing, turning it into a video cooking class.
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