Tanti Auguri!

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to celebrate my twentieth birthday in Rome.  I decided to start off my twenties a bit on the wild side (I kid) by skipping my Italian class in order to attend an all day cooking class.  To be fair, that class is the only class I have missed this entire semester, and we had been trying to find a day to go to a cooking class since September.  And when we found out that the only available day was my birthday, we knew it was perfect.

 

{The ingredients for our class}

So Thursday morning, we headed to Le Fate Restaurant for our cooking class.  The class began by telling us a bit about what we would be making and by teaching us about Roman cuisine.  Roman cuisine is quite different from what you might typically consider “Italian” cuisine.  In one of my classes about Italian culture, we actually recently learned just how regionally specific food is in Italy.  “You eat like you speak” is a quote often used to explain the regional variety of food in Italy.  The northwest of Italy is known for its rice based dishes, Tuscany for its use of bread, and Lazio and Southern Italy for its pasta.

 

{Holding the pumpkin flowers}

Our menu for the day included an antipasto, primo piatto, secondo piatto, and dolce.  The appetizer was Pumpkin Flowers with prosciutto and mozerella and Southern Style Pesto. 

{The appetizers stuffed and ready to be fried}

The first course was fresh, homemade Tagliolini all’Amatriciana (a very typical Roman dish).  

{Cooking the pasta!  It only takes 30 seconds for the fresh pasta to cook.  You actually could just throw it into the warm sauce, and it would cook. Crazy!}

{The finished product!}

The second course was Chicken scaloppini with prosciutto, cheese and sage.

The dessert was a spring cake made with yogurt and filled with pears.

 

{Too cute!}

The class was incredibly hands-on, and I loved learning as we were cooking.  The chef, Andrea, was highly knowledgeable and quite helpful in showing us how to make all of the dishes. 

{With the chef, Andrea, in the kitchen!}

I helped assemble the appetizers, make the homemade pasta, and chop the vegetables and meat for the pasta sauce—among other tasks. 

{Chopping for the pasta sauce}

{Assembling the appetizers}

{Smelling the pasta sauce as it was cooking}

I absolutely loved cooking, but of course, I was really excited for eating our delicious meal.  The meal was served to us as a sit-down meal, and each course was paired with a different wine.  The appetizer was paired with Spumante, a wine that is said to open your stomach and prepare you for the many courses to come.  Apparently, some restaurants will actually serve you Spumante “on the house” in order to try and get you to order more courses.  Tricky, tricky.

 

{The whole group!}

The meal was absolutely delicious, and I cannot wait to make some of the recipes for my family when I get home (we were given all of the recipes)!  My family is in for quite a treat. 

After the cooking class, I returned home to rest up and get ready for my birthday dinner!  One of my roommates had actually turned twenty one the previous Sunday, so we decided to do a joint birthday dinner.  We had a delicious, three-course dinner—making for a total of seven courses in the course of about six hours.  As you can imagine, I was just a tiny bit full.  The food and company truly made for a lovely evening.

 

My birthday was truly such a great day, and I don’t know if any of my future birthdays will compare.  I mean how can you compare to celebrating a birthday in Italy?!  I know, for sure, that it was better than my last two birthdays (a final last year and the ER the year before).  The cooking class was superb, my friends were too sweet and spoiled me with so many treats, and the dinner was just too fun!