Day 10

Our hotel in Aosta didn't have internet so I have been out of touch with the world for the past few days.  For those of you who are wondering, we are fine. The earthquake was a four hour drive away.  These are photos and thoughts from Day 10.... I'm going to try to catch up.

The drive to Aosta was beautiful with castles and churches with the the Alps as a back drop.

Upon arival Tara, Laura and I went out to walk around the town,  We had three hours before we met up with our local Rotarian host. They say you know tourists in NYC because they walk looking up.  I’m sure we must have looked the same.  The moutains peeking up behind the buildings were amazing.

looking out my window

Chocolate made by the students

I did another vocational visit to a School of Tourism. Again the program taught hotel hospitality, the culinary arts and food service. While there I thought it would be neat if some of the kids did an exchange in the USA for the summer. Live with a local family and work at a place like the Mimslyn or on the drive. The students are fluent in a minimum of 4 languages and have been trained very well.

An 11th Century Castle, just chillin behind the school.

Roman City Wall

The area hosts the highest peaks in the Alps, we were able to see peaks from Italy, Switzerland and France. Our first stop was a Vineyard that is at the highest elevation in Europe.

Next we stopped at a cheese cave, the Aosta region is a first producer of Fontinia.

The smell was so pungent that I nearly threw up and it made me sick for the remainder of the day,  there were 5 "halls" like this and apparently 6 other caves where the cheese is stored.

Lastly we went to Mount Bianco (Italian spelling I think Blanc in English) the highest peak in Italy. The top is 4807 meters, not sure how that translates in English maybe, around 15,000 feet. We drove to some vistas, only at 1800 meters (5,000+ feet) and then stopped at a cafe for some coffee.

Day 9

Today we are packing and then driving to Aosta - a city in the Alps.  Hopefully we will get to do some hiking.  So since we aren't "doing" anything I figured I'd post my people photos of our time in Alessandria since most of what I've blogged is sights so far. No stories with the photos because check out is in 5 min so there is not time.

did i mention our host this day was dressed in head to toe PRADA

 the next few are from the vineyard and wouldn't post the other day

Good bye little room!

Day 8

 making the cream

 We made the dinner in reverse order, first Tiramisu since it has to refrigerate for a while. I wasn’t able to eat any since it contained 9 raw eggs and raw anything isn’t so hot for pregnant women, but every one else seemed to enjoy it.

I did however snack on some Lady Fingers

Next we made pesto for one lasagna and a ragu for another.

  Working together to get everything done- the team that came to Virginia from Italy stopped by too.

 the apertif made last- bread (toast) meat chesese and tomatos... kinda a do it yourself brushetta.

 Enjoying all our hard work!!

 This photo is for Joey- a new fruit I tired, it is the size of a kiwi, has skin like an apple that you peel off and the texture of a plum. It was sweet and juicy

 

I know it is before lunch in the States, but here the day is nearly finished. Since it is our last day in Alessandria the Italian GSE coordinator made arrangements for our team to spend the day cooking a traditional meal with his daughter.

Day 7

Today was amazing, one of our team members owns a catering company so we went to a Famous Itailian Restaurant to see the kitchen.  Little did we know they would put us to work.

 Learning to make focaccia:

This is me making sabyon, a custard of egg yolk, sugar, and white wine, it was later chilled and mixed with whipped cream.

 This is the owner and head chef teaching us to make rissoto.

 Did I mention he is world famous and cleared his schedule be with us today.  He has an Italian cooking show and a culinary university.  He is the equivalent of Julia Childs or Bobby Flay.

 Enjoying the Rissoto

 After we spent the morning helping prepare, the chef had us go to the resaurant to eat. 

the focaccia

 Since we don't read Italian he picked what we ate and we divided it among ourselves

 I also chopped the peaches in the photo above.

 Raw beef, sardines, roast beef and a local delicacy - Russian Salad (tuna salad)

 cheese stuffed tomato, onion, zucchini - the colors of the Italian flag.

 a mousse of white fish and potato

 Agnolotti

gnocchi colored with octopus ink

In the afternoon we visited the Marengo Museum, from the Napoleone battle of Marengo, the tower above was present at the time.