Just warming up...

So contrary to popular belief im not dead. Busy busy weekend thats all.

 Editors Note: I consider friday nights to be apart of the weekend shift because if the weekend starts for someone who works M-F when there shift is over friday then when I work friday night it starts my shift.

Friday:


Marchesi.

 So We worked 9-2 this friday, prepping food for the wedding on saturday.We then went with Peppe to meet Pietro Zito in his reasturaunt in Foggia. Now for those who don't know Zito is ranked in the top 10 chefs in italy and owns his own reasturaunt and olive oil field. www.pietrozito.it We met with him and the President of Slow Foods (Slowfood.com) Foggia to car-pool to a meeting involving the biggest names in olive-oil production in italy to speak about the spread of their industry. While we were there we had the oppertunity to meet the number one rated chef in italy Gualtiero Marchesi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gualtiero_Marchesi) We wernt able to sit and hold a solid conversation with him due to the amount of people that were trying to get his attention but the few wrods we had were something to be remembered. Once we had left we headed back to Zitos reastraunt for a late dinner. Now mind you dinner over seas is alot bigger than the states it started off with about 7 or 8 different primi dishes all of wich were a bite or two a piece, from there we had spagetti con cavllo wich was an experience in itself, had the chew of a filet of beef but a taste all its own. From that we had a 4oz steak cooked with caco to a perfect medium rare, also fantastic. And for dessert we had Bicotti, wine soaked apples, rum soaked pound cake, lemonchello, and a homemade herb liquor wich was quite interesting. Now mind you this whole time weve been drinking different wines and eating homemade bread with house made EVOO. After that 21:00 feast we headed back to the house to rest up before tomorow.


Saturday:

Half of the food for the wedding.

We woke up ay 8:45 grabbed an espresso and began the longest day yet. We Prepped all sorts of food for the wedding wich started at 2. We served bread and mini sandwiches for hors d'oeuvres after that we served a meat platter consisting of sliced prosciutto, capicola, and pancetta, followed by a cheese plate with 3 homemade cheeses. Then we served two different plates of pasta, followed by a serving of that veal lasgna I spoke of in a earlier post. Now about this time its 19:00 and all thats left is the dessert so we headed down to the reasutraunt to help prepare for the 18th birthday party starting at 21:00. Now the food was close to the same, sliced meat plates to start and cheese plates to follow, a pasta dish and then sliced pork roast served with roasted potatoes to follow, dessert was a birthday cake purchased by on of the party go-ers. So after serving all the food, a few relaxing brews, our family meal and clean up we finally got to sleep at roughly 2:30 the following day. A long but 'tis the life of a cook, and any other cook will back me up with that statement.


Sunday:

Good Company.

Now we were un-knowing at this point what was to happen today but we woke at 8:45 again, grabbed an espresson, and got down to buisness. Turns out that there was another wedding/giant party in the banquet hall and another small party in the reasturaunt, so all of a sudden we were up to our neck in prep again, the only difference from yesterday? Everything starts 2 hours sooner. So we dished out as much prep as we could for the party in the banquet hall before being sent down to the reasturaunt to help the kitchen down there. (Note: I forgot to mention that there is roughly 3-5 cooks working in the banquet hall and 1-3 down in the reastraunt including myself and rindaldi at any given time.) So back to the story, while we were down prepping for the small party in the restaurant Peppe came down to pay us a visit with a few of his friends. They were however no normal friends, One was the president for Slow Foods Italia the other? the mayor of Orsara, and we were about to cook for them along with this party. So after a quick photo-op we got back to the grind stone and needless to say it all went down without a hitch. Were served sliced capacole with fresh fromaggio and argula for starters, followed by crustini with sauteed mushrooms, cantalini and escarole, orecchiette for a pasta dish, followed by veal lasgna and roasted potatoes, the dessert was a platter of sweets. We then cleaned and went back to help the banquet hall finish there service and once we did finish we left, headed back to the dorms and here we are now. 

Its really starting to sink into the both of us that were away from home, and were not going back for a while still...no complaints.

Pace&Amore

-R