Judy and Bob's big trip: Pasta al Pesto

Cooking lesson with Stephania Balducci

Attending a cooking class in Tuscany has been on my wish list for some time but the opportunity has not been there. So it was high on my list this time when we were in the area. We had hoped to do it at Podere Campiano but they were not running them so we were referred to Pasta al Pesto in Montefioralle. What a find. Stephania is a lovely chic lady who lives in a hilltop village called Montefioralle above Greve. She runs classes from her home when she is not travelling to the US and other countries to give demonstrations.

Bob and I were lucky enough to be the only two attending. A couple of days later she was doing the same class for 10. We spent about 4 hours cooking and then eating what we’d made. None of us took it too seriously and we had lots of fun.

The food was all typical of the area except for the Tiramisu which originates from Venice. We made pesto with celery leaves so as not to waste them, ravioli with ricotta and zucchini by hand, chicken with herbs and pine nuts and tiramisu. Will you get homemade pasta next time you come to our place for dinner? – maybe! Stefania may come to Australia to do demonstrations next year so we’ll watch out for that.

It amused us that she received some texts during the class from local young people who knew she was doing a class - maybe because our car was strange or maybe because of the aromas I don’t know. However they were offering to help eat any leftovers afterwards. There were some!

We made soffritto using carrots, celery, red onion and garlic which is a basis for lots of Tuscan dishes. This will certainly be added to the repertoire at home.

We had remarked at breakfast where we were staying that the bread was a little hard. It tasted good but was different to the fresh bread we've bought elsewhere. Stephania enlightened us. Tuscan bread has no salt. At one time salt was very scarce and expensive so the locals made it without salt and continue to do this today.