Four days in Italy.

Hello all once again, this time from the city of Imperia, Italy.

Just a fun fact, it is about 75 degrees, probably the most beautiful sun-shiny day in all of the history of the world, and soon I will be sitting on the white sandy beaches of the Mediterranian Sea.
Be jealous, I would be. :)

It has been a very great time in Italy thus far. We as a culinary group have had a tour of Imperia, which has a beautiful domed chapel that was built in the 1940's. It is absolutely beautiful. My favorite piece of art is the faceless crucifiers of Christ, I hope to be able to get a picture up on this blog, and I will label it to show you all as well. Internet is hard to come by here, we were lucky to find a nice lady, who basically let us run internet off her phone from her cafe. We also attended the city market, where I got some of the fresh fruits and vegatbles that are grown by local farmers. I don't know if it is the climate or what, but they have an amazingly fresh taste. I so far have had fresh cherries, olives, apricots, tangerines, and green beans. Just amazing.

One of the coolest things in Italy has been getting some cooking demonstrations/lessons from an Italian Chef named Massimo. He has been working in his family's restaurant most of his life, I think 45 years, and has taught us much about Italian cokery. His mantra is one that would rather use few, fresh and simple ingredients to make a dish that can be identified by the customer. James said that he so hertily believes the same thing about food, and was so pleased to have someone else say it, and he said it like it was poetry.The difference between French and Italian cooking, he said is that no French chef could ever send out a dish like the one he made for us, a raw spagetti sauce. French cooking is all about complicated procedures and about dazzling presentation. While this is very necessary, as the French set many standards in the culinary world, his pasta dish had 5 main ingredients, and it was absolutely the best thing I have ever eaten. He has been most hospitable, and I really do not think I could thank him enough for all of his time that he has given us. I will soon be able to post some pictures on this and some other blogs, once I am back home with my computer that I am able to utilize to do such things.

I have another meeting with Massimo, we all do rather, soon; and so I must say farwell for now. Having an absolutely wonderful time, I hope to be able to post from Holland before my flight leaves.

Ciao!
Ben

P.S. this computer has no spellchecking mechanism, so please forgive and misspellings and failures at grammar in general.