Imparare a Fare Cucinare

Since my arrival, I’ve been looking into cooking classes. I realized the first time that I went into Lucia’s grocery store that I’d need to learn a thing or two. My first night here, I asked Lucia what I should make for dinner. There’s no frozen food section, and even if there was I don’t own a microwave. She gave me penne pasta, olive oil, an onion, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, freshly ground parmigiana, and figured I could handle the rest on my own.  Since then, her combination has been a staple, along with bran flakes and yogurt, or bran flakes and nutella (it’s not that unhealthy - the bran cancels out the nutella, right?).

Anyway -  I’ve been searching for cooking classes, and up until this morning had only found one. It costs 150 EUROS, lasts just two hours, and teaches you had to put together an antipasto plate and make spaghetti. It’s expensive, and really doesn’t sound all that exciting.

It was overcast today, and looked like it would pour any minute, so I postponed my trip to Paestum and instead went down to Mario’s restaurant for lunch. “Bellalena, comme via?” He greeted me, and immediately started firing off questions in Italian as I tried my best to keep up. I also realized that I think he thinks my name is Lena. In Italian, Leigh (Li or Gli) means “them”, “there,” or “the,” so it would make sense he thinks he either misheard me when I introduced myself, or thinks my name is short for something else. I didn’t realize this until an American woman complained that he didn’t call her Bellalena too, and he shot her a quizzical look and asked, “You’re name is Lena too?”

Mario doesn’t even ask what I want anymore, but instead just brings me the special of the day, or his favorite dish of the moment. Today it was bruschetta, penne pasta with zucchini, red wine, and a complimentary glass of limcello with a raspberry floating in it for dessert. Amazing.

When I was almost finished eating, I decided to ask Mario about a cooking class. And yes, I did have a slightly ulterior motive for asking him rather than Lucia or one of the girls. He thought for a minute and told me he had heard of one nearby, but didn’t know much about it, and thought it was expensive, and perhaps even closed at the moment. Then, as I’d hoped, he suddenly had a brilliant though: “You can learn to cook here!” He told me wait a minute, and then brought a woman over to the table, introduced us, and told her that I had enquired about cooking classes, and he thought it would be an excellent idea if I learned there. I learned she was the owner (apparently he’s not?), and she agreed that I could use their kitchen, and their staff would teach me how to make authentic Italian food. I thanked her profusely for the opportunity, and told her I knew how to boil pasta but that was about it (a slight exaggeration, but whatever), and I couldn’t wait to learn how to make their ravioli, lasagna, and fresh fish. I made sure to compliment their food and tell her it was the best I’d had in Positano. she acknowledged my compliments with a sincere “Grazie,” and said they would be glad to have me. “Our staff will certainly enjoy it,” she told me.

I can’t wait. 10:00 Monday morning, I’ll learn to cook real, Italian food, and work on my language skills as I do. Now I just need to find a scooter rental place and see if I can find a similar "internship" of sorts there - I’m sure they’ll need someone to test drive their Vespas to ensure they can make it to Rome and back, right?