Cooking with Gabriella



Gabriella, Iron Chef from Tuscany!



I never knew cooking could be so much fun and that Tuscan cuisine is so accessible and do-able!  Gabriella invited us into her kitchen on Monday at Villa Piazzano.  Her big smile and words of welcome to us were encouraging:  “I love food and I love to cook!  But more importantly, I love people and I love to cook with people!”  We felt right at home.   Gabriella is a veteran chef who has been at Piazzano for three years.  From Tuscany, her Mama and Grandmama were her inspirations in the kitchen. Cooking with her you feel like you are enjoying the company of an old friend.  Gabriella is an amazing cook.  She does not use recipes, but knows the combinations that work.  She encouraged us to follow her recipes, but to change them, using herbs and other ingredients that we might love or want to substitute.  “Whatever makes you happy,” she would exclaim.  We were very happy cooking with her for four days! 

We donned aprons and headed out to the garden first thing before cooking, where we cut fresh basil, oregano, sage (blue, pineapple, white and regular), rosemary, thyme, zucchini squash and then to our surprise, the yellow zucchini flowers that make a wonderful addition to salads or herbed cheeses.  Cucumbers would grow 5 inches a day in the warm Tuscan sun.  Eggplant and artichokes, tomatoes and lettuces and onions, all made their way back to the kitchen. 

Zuchini Flowers to eat

The vegetable and herb garden contained lovely raised beds defined by twisted tree saplings cut from the woods around and was surrounded by a bay leaf hedge—no wonder bay leaf wreaths are popular at Christmas in some places—never realized bay leaves formed a tall hedge allowing for plentiful use!  Gabriella particularly likes bay leaf and sage for pork and beef. 

It was back to the kitchen where we began the lesson, which was actually the preparation of a four-course meal that we would share a couple of hours later.  Gabriella told us we could easily prepare a meal for 6-8 people in two, to two and a half hours.  Of course, some things could be started the night before, like marinade for the meats and the tiramisu.  We usually started our lesson preparing dessert.  After dessert was prepared, we’d begin the antipasta, the appetizer.  But after about 30 minutes, we’d enjoy bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, basil and garlic simply scraped on the toasted bread,---topped off with a wonderful Tuscan pecorino cheese and a glass of wine (at 11 a.m.. it is 5 p.m. somewhere in the world!).

We learned how to make homemade pasta, and Gabriella taught us how to use a pasta machine.  The only way to make pasta now Gabriella exclaimed---no rolling pins for pasta.  Amazingly, she didn’t use a bowl but simply made a ring of semolina and all-purpose flour on the cooking board and cracked her eggs right into it.  She would use herbs in the pasta mix that were going into whatever filling or ragout tossed with the pasta.  One day we made risotto and it was so easy.  I had thought risotto had to simmer for hours, but Gabriella’s took 15 minutes and was delicious.  With risotto and other rice dishes, she loves saffron (especially good with fish, too).

The food was fabulous when we sat down to lunch every day about 1 p.m.  But even more satisfying was enjoying our new friends we cooked with.  The first day we cooked with Marissa and Steve from Manhattan.  They were on their honeymoon from their marriage celebration the week before.  They were so full of love and eager for their unfolding life together.  They were barely older than Case and asked many questions of us 30 year veterans about what they had just gotten themselves into.  “Keep on cooking together and enjoying life---be committed to the commitment,” we shared with them. 

The second cooking lesson was with Rookie and Stan, just retired from New York and New Jersey and living now in West Palm, near where Tippy and I honeymooned.  We shared instant rapport about spiritual matters and health, and although we use different languages we realized we were headed in the same direction.  We will keep in touch with these lovely folks.  It is amazing how you can connect over food.  But that is the point Gabriella kept telling us.   The third lesson was with a sweet family from Raleigh.  David, Cheryl, Camie and Ellie loved to cook at home and were delighted to acquire new insight from Gabriella.  Again, it is wonderful what you discover you have in common with people as you share God’s presence and a meal.  It is no wonder Jesus shared his most intimate moments over food and wine.   The Gospel stories of Jesus cooking for the disciples on the beach after his resurrection let us know that we, too, share new life and love and healing when we cook for others. 

On Saturday, we had our fourth lesson with a young Australian couple whose families had migrated to Australia from southern Italy.  It was great to learn they were from Adelaide where our friends Alice and Milton’s son Bert is completing his PhD.  Small world.  Francesca and Anthony were on a three month holiday touring all over Europe.   I told them I was on Sabbatical for the first time after 17 years of ministry and here they were after 4 years or marriage and work “doing the continent!”  Their parents were joining them in a couple of weeks and this would be the first time they had returned to Italy.  Anthony fluently spoke an Italian dialect but to his surprise, it is no longer spoken where his family is from.  This young couple and their families kept many Italian customs that had been diluted by a changing and modernized world in Italy.  They were proud of their heritage and that they had kept the traditions.  They had embraced a new world while holding on to things important to their identity.  Something we all need to remember.    We also cooked Saturday with Kevin, a surgeon from Boston, and his son Andrew, a rising senior in high school.  Andrew was a wrestler and once wrestling season was over, cooked everything he wanted that he couldn’t have while training. He especially liked the mascarpone cheese with pears. 

Knowing this was our last experience of sharing the cooking and a fabulous meal, we just didn’t want to leave the table. Toasting Gabriella with limoncello and grappa, we finally had to pull ourselves up from the table. We have certificates to prove our attendance if the pictures aren’t enough! The menus for our four lessons are listed below, to encourage you all to get your hands on a Tuscan cook book and start cooking with someone you love. I’m signed up to do a cooking demonstration at the Greene Street Market at Nativity in September, so I look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with people I love in Huntsville. 

Sally Stockton and I will do a Wednesday Night at Nativity in October featuring homemade pasta. I’ll have to especially practice that skill. As you can see from the video, my tagliatelline pasta ended more like tagliatelleroni because I was cutting the pasta like bread instead of with one swift firm chop of a sharp knife.But not to worry, Gabriella said, it will taste just as wonderful.  "Istts a alll righta!" 

Tippy and I will never forget Gabriella and this incredible experience.  Cooking is more about sharing life and love and blessings than simply food.  We are inspired to do just that, not only with friends, but with those who have no food, and those whose hearts are heavy.  We do not eat by bread alone, but by the “word of God” –God’s active presence unfolding in the world in justice, and peace, and love.  Salute`! 

First Lesson
Strudel salato con prugne e pancetta
Ravioli con gorgonzola e pere
Filetto di maiale allo zenzero e miele di acacia
Tiramisu di fragoli  

Second Lesson

Tagliatelline pasta with mixed vegetable ragout

Ossobuco

Biscottini al vinsanto

Melanzane (Eggplant Rolls) with aromatic ricotta cheese

Third Lesson

Bresaola, Rucola e Parmigiano

Risotto con zafferano e fiori di zucchini
Melanzane alla Parmigiana

Tiramisu

Fourth Lesson                                                      

Aromatic ricotta cheese Mousse

Zuppa di zucca (pumpkin!)

Filetto di maiale agli agrumi e miele di Acacia

Pere al mascarpone