Tuscany: Date Night.

My friend Sabrina and I like to eat, talk food, and experiment with cooking.  So when a Groupon for a cooking class at Chefs, Inc. came up, we jumped on it.  While the initial decision to take a cooking class was a quick and sure one, deciding on what class to take was the exact opposite.  We agonized over which class would, 1. be the best value for our money, 2. offer the most amount of take home knowledge, and 3. accommodate Sabrina's many (and I mean many) food preferences.  Any kind of Spanish or Mexican was out due to the fact that the food might be spicy.  (Love her, but even the addition of pepper can sometimes push her over the edge... come on!)  Any class that had a chicken dish was out.  She's got this weird thing against chicken, I still don't quite understand it, but chicken is boring anyways.  And then there was our many scheduling conflicts on both ends.  But finally, finally, we came to a joint decision on Tuscany!... date night... oh well, so what if we are the only non-couple, couple there.  Which turned out to be exactly the case, but still, we were a perfect pair.

We both agree that the class didn't offer enough hands on cooking for our taste.  We pretty much got booted out of the group making the soup, but we ending up doing most of the Olive Oil Lemon Cake.  And we grilled bread...

Not quite what we had in mind as far as fulfilling our "take home knowledge" quota... but hey, that bruschetta that everyone seemed to love so much (mainly, because we were all starving) couldn't have happened with out us... (or the people that chopped the tomatoes, but they don't really matter as far as this story goes.)

Three Tomato Bruschetta - bread grilled by master bread grillers, Michelle and Sabrina.

So we pretty much dumped some ingredients into a bowl for a cake, grilled some bread, and sat and drank wine.  Good thing the rest of the class didn't mess up the other dishes too bad, and that we got the class for half off.  All in all we did leave full, and I learned, not by actually making it but by reading the recipe book, how to make a fabulous Tuscan peasant soup called Ribollita.

Ribollita, courtesy of everyone but us.

Braised short ribs in a wine reduction.  We did "help" put these in the oven.

Our masterpiece! Olive Oil Lemon Cake.

But most importantly I got to spend time with Sabrina, and anytime we are together is a good time! 

peace, love, cooking, and happiness!