Rome and Cooking

So I got to go to Rome on friday! It was great and fortunately the weather was nice and sunny! We got to see:
The Colloseum
Arch of Constantine
Arch of Titus
Roman Forum
Circus Maximus
Capitol Hill
Jewish Ghetto
Fountain of the Turtles
Piazza Nuvona
Pantheon
Trajan's Column/Forum
Victor Emmanuel Monument
Santa Maria Maggiore

And we did all this in 8 short hours! The Colloseum was pretty amazing, but we didn't get to go inside (and I think we would have been waiting in line for 2 hours if we did). My favorite of the day was the Fountain of the Turtles. According to our professor, Marco (who is a walking history book) its actually the most famous Roman fountain it just doesnt attract was many tourists as the Trevi does. He also recommended that we revisit the Pantheon and go to the coffee shop named "The Golden Cup" and order the Granita. So we did. Apparently this is a frozen esspresso drink with lots and lots of whip cream. Its soo good and it kept us awake for quite a while!

Another food trama: we ate at a pizza restaurant and all it had were names of pizzas and a picture right beside it. A couple of us got what was called a "Pizza Napoletana". Never trust the picture. But I was pretty sure that Napolean meant a spicy type of sausage or salami. Wellllll, so we got the pizza and it had globs of something pasty on it. It was really salty and bitter. Not necessarily bad, just.. not what I really wanted on my pizza. Well I went back and looked this up in my Italain phrase book and it turns out that a Pizza Napoletana usually means: a pizza with cheese, tomato and anchovies. *long pause*............... yea... and I ate it all. Never again. But I guess now I can say I've had it.

Cooking Class with Chef Lorenzo at Cafe Zeppelin
Saturday was a full day of cooking with Lorenzo at his cafe, which is, yes, actually named after Led Zeppelin. We got there at 8:45 am and before the noon hour hit, we had already had 2-3 cups of coffee and 2 shots of liquor and 3 glasses of wine... and we were still had to cook our 4 course meal.... lunch. Yes, lunch. I was in charge of the chocolate moose. (which turned out amazing if I do say so myself) It was pretty easy though and I had a lot of help from the main man himself. But our 4-course lunch consisted of: Salad with cheeses, nuts, fruits and beef with bread, Risotta (um... amazing), beef stew and potato flan (also amazing) and of course, my chocolate moose. Then after lunch and being extremely uncomfortably full, we went to a winery and tried a ton of wine. Then to an olive oil press and ate some more samples of their olive oil and their spreads. ... AND THEN.. we headed back for our 4-course dinner prepared by the Chef's team of cooks and students. For dinner we had: Salad with artachokes and peppers, lasagna, a crispy crepe filled with pork and chicken and tomato and basil (again, amazing) and for dessert was an orange pie with lemon gelato (also... amazing). Lets just say that was some of the best food I'd ever had..... but I pretty much waddled home and felt like I was going to burst for quite a while. And I woke up this morning and didn't feel hungry til about around mid-afternoon. Mamma Mia!