Leonardo, Food and Wine

 Our last day before traveling began, as usual, with the hotel’s extensive breakfast buffet.  We didn’t realize what the day really held, so I had my umpteenth wonderful chocolate croissant, a bowl of fresh fruit, a nice helping of gorgonzola on a slice of fresh brown bread, a couple of slices of delicious Italian salami and two cups of coffee for breakfast.  It turned out to be a mistake, as the entire day would be filled with food and wine.

 After breakfast we had our last lecture from our Vanderbilt art professor, on the life and art of Leonardo da Vinci.  She was outstanding, tracing the development of his art through his life in a broad overview in an hour.  How she managed to condense so much material into an hour’s lecture is beyond me; she’s a talented teacher.

We then drove up and up and up into the hills above the lake to La Rampolina, a restaurant perched on the mountainside with an astonishing view:

 


Our cooking demonstration began with a talk on northern Italian cooking (rice and potato based) as opposed to southern Italian cooking (pasta based).  Amazingly, this area grows rice, and has the water to do so.  The wheat which is used to make pasta is grown further south, primarily in Apulia, and so, until easy transportation, northern Italian starch was primarily based on rice and potatoes.  Thus, gnocchi, the first demonstration food, is a northern dish based, in this case, on potatoes. 

 


We were taught how to boil a potato—with the skin on so it doesn’t get soggy—and then mash it to begin the gnocchi:


Flour, eggs, salt, etc. are added, and the mixture is kneaded and mixed:


It is then rolled out and cut:

 



Then the dumplings are boiled and sautéed (see recipe).  A lot of work for a potato dumpling.  Finally, we had a demonstration of making tiramisu:

 


After our lesson, we went to the lovely terrace overlooking the lake for our appetizers and prosecco (which was poured with generosity):

 


After enjoying the wonderful pre-lunch reception with prosecco, we went into the restaurant for a three-course lunch!  First the gnocchi in a crumbled beef red sauce, then grilled steak cooked to order, and finally the tiramisu, all accompanied by freely poured red and white wine.  Finally, back to the hotel, and those going back to the USA tomorrow walked into town for their scheduled COVID tests.  As we’re going to France tomorrow, we don’t need to do anything.

 We’re packing up now, and tonight have—are you ready? —a goodbye wine and hors d’oeuvres reception at 6:00 followed by a 7:00 goodbye dinner, three courses and freely flowing wine.  I hope we’re able to rouse ourselves to get to the airport in the morning.  We’ll drive to Milan (our flight is from Milan’s second airport, Linate) and fly Milan-Paris-Bordeaux, arriving Bordeaux at 5:40 PM.  Assuming all goes well, the next post will be on Thursday, Oct. 14, from Bordeaux, where we look forward to great food and wine.  Can there be too much of good things?

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