Fish, Eggs, and Eri

Friday night was kind of a disaster in the kitchen. It was another private lesson with that really nice Argentine couple (the one that can’t eat cream), and they had made special requests for the menu. They said they wanted to learn how to make pane del rosmarino (bread with rosemary) and pesce frittata. Now, some clarification needs to be made. There are two words in Italian that are kind of similar. Frittata and Frittura. They are very different things. A frittata is like an omelet, cooked with some oil (of course), various vegetables, basil, and other herbs. A frittura is a fried dish. They meant to ask for frittura. But instead of requesting fried fish, they requested a fish omelet. Luisa thought this was kind of strange because it’s not an Italian custom to have fish in your eggs. She tried her hardest to be fancy and inventive with it. It was definitely creative.
First we made the bread. We made the pane del rosmarino, focaccia, and ciabata (a long, hard roll). I’m not entirely sure why Luisa had them make three different types of bread, but I love bread so I didn’t complain. Then we started the egg creations. They said they didn’t want any pasta or any dessert, so in order to make the first course more substantial, Luisa had them prepare three different egg dishes. Luisa was shocked that I had never made a frittata before. She asked me how I ever expected to find a husband without knowing how to make one. From that point on, everything we did was going to help me find a husband. Luisa and Miriam kept telling me which dishes to make in order to secure one.

We cooked the first two in oven. They were definitely the most interesting. The first had egg, onion, peas, and calamari. The second had egg, onion, asparagus, and shrimp. The third frittata was called frittata alla trippa. Trippa means tripe. Don’t worry, it didn’t have tripe in it. The egg was cooked on the stove and then rolled up and cut into long, thin, spirally strips. Those were then put into a tomato sauce that we made, giving the appearance of tripe, apparently. We had almost finished cooking all of the eggs and the couple mentioned that they thought a frittata was a little different. As they described what they had expected, the miscommunication was discovered. Luisa was so mad because a frittura would have been so much better! We did have grilled fish for the second course, so that kind of made up for it. But not entirely. It was an odd meal. We had three types of bread, three types of egg, fish, and a cake that Luisa and I threw together because the couple hadn’t requested any dessert. The bread was all delicious. The eggs were definitely interesting. The shrimp/asparagus one had a sort of brownish-green color. To make it even better, they had been cooked in heart-shaped oven tins. So we had two heart-shaped omelets, one with shrimp and the other with squid, and one that looked like tripe. The worst part was that the lady, Miriam, can’t eat eggs either! Her doctor told her she can’t have that much cholesterol. She waited till Luisa was out of the room to put her portion back on the plate. She offered me her tripe eggs, but I said no thank you. The fish, on the other hand, was delicious! I loved it.

Even though it’s a lot of work, it’s really fun doing private sessions like that. Usually the chefs and I eat in the kitchen and the students have a separate dining room. But this couple always insists that we eat with them. It’s fun. The cake that we made, was also good. Minus the eggs, the meal was actually quite good. Each type of bread we made was good. The pane del rosmarino had raisins in it and it was delicious! We put sweet onions on top of the foccacia this time and I loved it. We had made so much bread that I got to take lots home with me, so I was excited!

I have made a Japanese friend here named Eri. She is so nice. She is a student at the school learning Italian and she comes to the cooking classes twice a week. She’s so cute and after the first class she asked if she could have my email address so we can keep in touch. She always invites me to parties and stuff, but I can never go because it’s too late and I have to ride my bike home. Yesterday, however, we went out for some gelato in the afternoon. It was fun. She’s just full of surprises, though. Daniela and I had been talking about how well Asian people age and I was wondering how old she is. She looks like she’s my age, but I’m terrible at guessing age so I figured she was about 22 or 23. I asked her the other day and found out she’s 33! Then I felt really stupid when she asked me how old I am and I had to tell her I’m 19. She just said, “Oh…almost the same age…” and smiled.

Last week I asked her how she was and what she had done over the weekend. She told me it had been fun and then casually mentioned that she had gotten married!!! I freaked out. She had never said anything at all about being engaged! She showed me her ring and some pictures she had of their wedding, which took place in Florence. Her new husband is also Japanese and lives in London. She’s very nonchalant about the whole thing, it’s crazy. Anyway, it was just a really big shock going from my engaged roommate, Daniela, who sits on her bed at night saying “I love him! I love him! I love him!” and staring at pictures of her fiancé, to Eri who failed to mention to me that she was even engaged! When we were planning our gelato outing I asked if she could go last Tuesday, she said she couldn’t, but she never told me it was because she was getting married the day before!