So, I finally took off my lazy pants this year and actually planned something for Mike's birthday back in May. He agreed to let me plan a surprise trip for him, and despite my best efforts to give away the "surprise" element of the whole thing, I managed somehow to keep it (mostly) under wraps, and whisked my dear husband off to two days of cooking classes in Bologna, one of our mostest favoritest cities in Italy. Bologna, in case you are unaware, is widely considered, even by Italians, to have some of the best food in Italy; one of its nicknames is, in fact, "The Fat One." Parmigiano, Parma ham, prosciutto, balsamic vinegar, tortellini, the classic Bolognese sauce (obviously...), and mortadella (the far superior precursor to American baloney) all come from nearby. And I'm sure I'm forgetting a thing or two. The city's a bit gritty and a little dirty, but it's affordable and energetic, home to the oldest university in the western world, and full of medieval towers, interesting old churches, and gorgeous little markets and artisanal shops. It's a truly fascinating and delicious place to spend some time, but don't tell anyone, 'cause we don't want it overrun.
As Mike's classes were scheduled on a Friday and Saturday, we headed to Bologna on Thursday and arrived late afternoon. Checked into our quiet and well-located little B&B (with fantastic homemade cakes at breakfast!!), then hit the streets for just a wee bit of sightseeing.
One of my favorite things about Bologna: the towers. I'm sure I've said it before, but these things are remnants from the Middle Ages, when building a ridiculously tall tower was both an ostentatious display of wealth and a potential military advantage, you know, just in case. Originally, there were anywhere between 100 and 200 of these things, but now there are only 21. Someday it'll occur to me while I'm there to hunt them all down, but it's also fun to have one pop up unexpectedly in front of you when you're roaming the streets. (This one's Torre Azzoguidi, and you can't see it here, but its base is covered in selenite, which is all crystal-y and sparkly.)
The view down Via Rizzoli, one of the city's main thoroughfares, towards Torre Asinelli, which is half of the city's symbol (the other half is the tower next to it, which you can't see here...). What we didn't know beforehand is that on weekends, they close Via Rizzoli--normally a terrifyingly busy and chaotic street--to traffic, and it becomes a pedestrian thoroughfare. It's utterly charming.
Hadn't thought of this before, either, but May 1 is Europe's Labor Day. Giant festival in Piazza Maggiore, people everywhere.
Did I mention that it's a ridiculously picturesque city, as well? 'Cause it is.
I think this is my favorite square in the city: the long, narrow Piazza Santo Stefano, lined with Bologna's famed arcades, and at the end, the Santo Stefano complex, with four little Romanesque churches from the 10th through 12th centuries. It's gorgeous.
Arcades by night. Parts of this city are downright elegant (and certainly posh).
The two towers, Garisenda (left) and Asinelli. Both of the towers have a distinctive lean, but it's Garisenda that leans outrageously--so much that they actually chopped off the top of it in the 14th century for safety reasons. Naturally, it's closed to the public, but one can climb the taller tower, if one so desires. (I did it once. It involved lots of sweating and stopping for breaks.)
Dinner on night 1 was at Al Sangiovese, which was certainly a wee bit off the beaten path, but a place full of locals, with about 10 tables, and well worth the walk to find it. We shared their signature starter plate, with caramelized figs, balsamic-glazed onions, stracchino cheese (which is super soft and delicious), flatbread, mortadella mousse, and prosciutto; then Mike went for the lasagne verde (with the green being from noodles, and certainly not veggies, goodness no!), and I had a plate of maccheroncini with pesto, tomatoes, and prosciutto; we split a fantastic main of sliced filet with balsamic sauce over arugula with parmigiano, and a side order of friggione (slow-cooked tomatoes with just a hint of onion); and, shockingly, skipped dessert. For once in our lives. (We also had a bottle of 2008 Sangiovese reserva superiore, and a bit of lambrusco, though, so I feel like we did all right.)
Day two, the cooking began, although not before we'd met up with our teacher, Carmelita;* had a really nice cappuccino at the downtown branch of Eataly; and headed to the markets to buy our ingredients. (That, people, would be the life for me, were we to live in a city with genuinely good markets. Not so much the teaching, though, as the shopping and eating.)
Warning: about a million food photos ahead.
This is how much the Bolognese like food: there's actually a plaque on this wall commemorating the original butcher's guild that presided over the production of Bologna's salumi ("of which the superfine mortadella made grand the legend of Bologna 'The Fat one' throughout the world"), and that was based in this building between 1242 and 1798. I love how poetic this thing is.
Carmelita is quite adept at determining immediately whether pasta in a shop window is handmade. These tortellini, apparently, are handmade, and are entirely worth the price. And also, look how tiny.
The Mercato di Mezzo, in the Quadrilatero district. There's been a market in this part of the city since the middle ages, but it's dwindling slowly due to modern supermarkets and lower-quality (i.e., cheaper) vendors. It's a tragedy.
As for the vendors who remain, however, they are passionate and helpful. I love how everything is very clearly labeled with where it's from. (And by hand, no less...!)
Mortadella bread! It's as fantastic as it sounds. More bread should have mortadella in it.
Ok, so we didn't cook with these, but they're the shiniest fish I've ever seen. They looked uncannily like stainless steel.
Chandeliers in the Gilberto Drogheria, where we tasted some fine, fine balsamico.
Stopped off for another coffee at Carmelita's favorite coffee shop, Terzi. These people do not mess around. Mike kindly tried out their cardamom concoction and let me have this creature, which involved pistachio and whipped creams. Holy yum. Too bad it was just a single shot: I could have downed a lot of this goodness.
Delicacies at my new favorite shop in the world, Bruno e Franco. Everything here is colorful and handmade and gorgeous and fresh, there's always a line out the door, and they gave us tons of free cheese. What's not to love? Want everything in this window.
A case full of bechamel vegetarian lasagne with zucchini blossoms on top, and a bunch of tortellini and tortelloni...
...handmade by these ladies in the wee rooms across the street, who all know Carmelita and let us clutter up their production space for a few minutes. (I tried not to move around, but with the way I'm shedding these days, there's probably a tortelloni [...tortellono?] somewhere in the world with my hair in it. If so, I'm very, very sorry to everyone involved.)
And all of that was even before we'd started cooking. Which we did at Carmelita's charming little flat, one entire wall of which was her custom-designed kitchen. (It. Is. Amazing.) And which has a view like this.
Italy: always better and more charming and tastier than what you've got.
Anyway, first dish: zucchini sformato (bechamel-and-egg mould) with squash blossom, favas, and tomato sauce.
Ridiculously simple, and terrifically delicious: Mike's hand-made cavatelli pasta with broccoli, sausage, and walnuts.
Main course: ribs cooked stovetop in milk, which keeps them tender and produces a super flavorful sauce at the end.
Side dish: fresh peas with ham and onions.
I feel like I've traditionally overused the words a "fantastic," "amazing," and related superlatives, and I don't want to get too redundant, so just assume that everything we cooked and ate was tremendous. 'Cause it was.
Things we saw after eating, 'cause we had to get out and wander around to make our stomachs go back to a manageable size: Bologna, like lots of other Italian cities, is full of prodigious buildings that hide insanely beautiful little courtyards. As in, they're everywhere.
The ol' arcades. Bologna has somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 km (25 miles) of these.
Because we were simply too full to eat any more (we'd also had a tasty little snack of mortadella bread, mild pecorino, and salami rosa while we were cooking), we ended the evening with an apero at Gamberini, which came highly recommended by Carmelita, and duly so. It's a classy little place that serves pastries, cakes, and lunch during the day, and drinks and apero snacks by night. (More about that later...!)
Day three opened with--yep--more coffee at Terzi, and if I lived as near to that place as Carmelita, you can bet they'd know my name and my drink on sight, as well. I went for a cappuccino this time around, and they topped it with giant shavings of chocolate for me. (Opulence...they has it.)
Sweetener options at Terzi. Fancy, fancy little pitchers.
At the market! We went to a different market this time, the Mercato delle Erbe, and strolled past this stand selling great wheels of southern Italian cheeses. Didn't buy anything, but it made my heart happy.
These absolutely gorgeous green tomatoes were everywhere, and they looked like they'd been hand-painted.
Back to Bruno e Franco for some more cheeses and salumi.
Snackies, day two: baked ricotta, foccacia with tomatoes/onions/olives, and more of that pecorino with candied figs. (Don't kid yourself, it's all astoundingly good.)
This is what vegetarian lasagna looks like, in action. Mike decided we should attempt to replicate the one we saw in the case at Bruno e Franco, and boy did we. He made the pasta dough by hand.
The finished (and delicious, delicious, delicious! it must be said!) product: white and zucchini bechamel lasagna with asparagus, sliced and butterflied zucchini, parmigiano, zucchini flowers, and wee little Greek basil leaves on top. This bad boy was 8 layers deep, and a tip of the hat to Mike for that.
Main course: rabbit cooked in white wine and garlic. Rabbit, people, is very tasty. Don't hate me.
Side dish: fresh datterini tomatoes and green beans with green garlic.
Dessert: panna cotta with fresh and macerated strawberries.
I failed entirely to record the white wines we drank with our first meal, but this one had to be mentioned: it's brachetto, a fizzy red dessert wine from the Piemonte, of all places. I had no idea. All these years we've been going there and missing out, but NO MORE. I will find you, fizzy wine.
More things-we-saw-after-eating: Via Rizzoli again, and I know it's redundant, but it's pretty awesome (and here I mean "genuinely awe-inspiring") to walk down this street and see the towers at the end. Every. Single. Time. I don't think I'd ever manage nonchalance in Bologna, were I to move there, because this view would never get old.
It would make sense that bits of Bologna look like Modena (or vice versa) since they're so close together. Love the colors.
Found a wee little canal just around the corner from our B&B.
See? Lean-y.
Once again, we ended up back at Gamberini for apero hour. The Italian apero hour is, in my opinion, one of man's greatest inventions: you simply go to a place serving drinks and order one, and it comes with some variety of snack. It could be a bowl of pretzels, something fancier like homemade potato chips, a little plate with a variety of items, or--my absolute favorite--an entire buffet of snacks, and at a crazily affordable price. It's outrageous and wonderful and social (well, if you speak Italian and/or know anyone else in the bar) and really fun. That's what we found at Gamberini both nights, although we were full--and wise--enough to steer clear of the buffet that first time around. The second night, however, upon seeing the snack buffet, my eyes far exceeded both the capacity of my already-stuffed stomach and my common sense, and I immediately decided that I had to COLLECT ALL THE SNACKIES. And so I did.
We had two rounds of drinks, and this photo shows how much came with each round...but there was more on the bar, and so I went in and got a plate and went positively nuts. Mike laughed at me, but it was glorious. Glorious, I tell you!**
Day 4 opened with a surprise breakfast of super tasty stuffed zucchini and mini meatballs (left over from someone else's cooking class that had transpired at our B&B...I guess they took me seriously when I told them that if they had anything left, we'd give it a good home!), more homemade cake from our kind hostess, and then a quick jaunt down the street to visit a massive church and its oratory full of remarkably well-preserved 16th-century frescoes (wherein, of course, we could take no photos, but you can see some here).***
San Giacomo Maggiore. We'd been walking past this thing every day, multiple times, and I finally decided that I had to see the inside. Which was fine and a bit baroque-y and all, but more interestingly, the original (center) part of the church dates back to between 1267 and 1315. Sheesh.
The main facade wasn't so interesting, but the church was covered in these fascinating, complex little details. Check out this molding, for example, that ran the entire length of the arcaded walkway (which was really long).
There were a handful of these little bits of script set into the walls...and we all know I'm a sucker for any kind of old script.
Along the arcaded walkway, in the side of the church, was a series of what look like tilework crosses that have, over the years, been sorta subsumed by the contemporary sidewalk.
Some well-loved stone lions by the front door.
After the church, we were roaming towards the center of town and happened across maybe the most fantastic street music I've ever heard: this band called Cumbia Mela, who are all Italian (some of them are professors at the university, how amazing is that??), but who had recently returned from a 10-day trip to Columbia to study cumbia music. Which I'd never heard of before, but now am a big fan. (Well, at least a big fan of theirs. I think they have something pretty unique, actually, 'cause all of the cumbia I've heard on iTunes sounds only vaguely like what they do.) We sat in a little sidewalk cafe, drinking some prosecco and eating the accompanying snackies, and I took about a thousand photos of the band, as well as a bunch of videos that came out fairly terribly. Anyway. I loved them deeply and bought their CD.
The entire band: two drummers, one accordion, a singer, upright bass, trombone player (here on the maracas!), sax (here on some sort of rhythm thingy), and clarinet.
They had a pretty great woodwind and trombone section. (Ok, they were all great, but I seemed to take a lot of photos of these four in particular.)
They also had this Ethiopian guy juggling hats. He was doing some amazing stuff. (Even Mike, former juggler, said so.)
We sat there so long we stayed through their second set, which was identical to the first, but absolutely no less enjoyable. (Here's what halftime looked like.)
This is what happiness looks (and sounds) like: prosecco, snackies, a warm sunny day, and terrific music.
Apologies: the camera couldn't quite figure out where to focus, so I guess just listen to the music. (Most of which reminded me of the bar scene in Star Wars, or sounded like something you'd hear on the Muppets. Loved it all. You should really check them out.)
And now, allow me, if you will, for a brief moment, to wax a bit poetic about Bologna...in case you haven't noticed, I really like it. Like, a lot. It's full of such lovely little details and intriguing little alleyways and grand palazzos and ancient towers and artistry and pride. Frankly, it'd be not to love it. Unless you can't get past the graffiti, or how bleary it can seem on a rainy day, which might be understandable...but even still. Look.
Had a snack in the piazzetta outside this interesting little building, which I'm assuming is an out-of-use church. Great exterior, whatever the case. (The building across the street from this one had at least six columns across the front, the capitals of which were each entirely unique.)
Insane door handle.
Lamp on the corner of the castle in Piazza Maggiore.
Another tower! This time with fancy zig-zag border. (This one, I think, is Torre Prendiparte.)
Stunning little florist shop on Via Drapperie.
Beckoning alleyway near Terzi...it tells me to come explore. (We didn't get around to it, but someday...)
Sixteenth-century castle remains...
...right next to the 19th-century entrance to Parco Montagnola. Which is right across the street from the main train station. Fascination abounds!
And then there are these: lots of shops have these roll-down security fronts, many of which, I've just this time noticed, are intriguingly painted. Perhaps, even, by some of the graffiti artists who find other outlets for their talents elsewhere in the city. Whatever the case, I heart them.
I only wish I'd taken photos of more of them.
Up next: our first real bike trip of the year to a cozy little place called Metz, France. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
*People, if you're headed to Bologna and want to take a cooking class, get in touch with Carmelita. She is delightful and fun and incredibly knowledgeable and talented and I can't recommend her highly enough. We will certainly go back and cook with her more, one of these days. Ooh, and another recommendation, courtesy of Carmelita, as well, of course: if in Bologna and looking for some incredible artisanal chocolate, check out Roccati. It's a small, family-owned and -run shop with some beautiful creations and really, really terrific chocolate. (Try anything with hazelnuts, or the ganaches.)
**...and then I went to bed with a stomachache. But it was so worth it! The hazelnuts (on the bottom left in the photo) were awesomely salty and coated with something extra crunchy (as were the almonds that preceded them), and since the photo's not so clear, there were wee sandwiches, miniature savory cream puffs, and bite-sized stacks of things. My favorite, pictured on the tray, second from top, was a circle of bread topped with ham, a piece of cheese, green pea puree, and balsamic vinegar. And all that thought and effort went into this tiny thing that was JUST ONE BITE! I'm guessing that you can probably sense my excitement here just by the sheer number of words I'm putting into describing apero hour, but you should see it. You'd understand.
***Naturally, right as we were leaving, a giant tour group of elderly German folk came in and started snapping photos immediately. I could have used the chaos as cover to take my own pictures, but chose to remain an upstanding citizen. You're welcome, Italian cultural heritage! (Even though I understand how to take a picture without flash [it's not that difficult, other tourists!!], and would therefore have avoided harming the frescoes.) Also on the subject of the oratory, what's weird about those frescoes is that anything in them that might have been made of metal or wood was actually a bit 3D, as though they'd been gilded or somehow textured over the painting. Kinda wish I had taken a photo, at least of that.
