If my assertion that our Cucinapalooza tour began in earnest on Sunday is true (see yesterday’s post), it is truer still that today’s itinerary began in Ernesto.  Parziani, that is.

Check out the day’s activities on our Featured Video:

We have cooked with Ernesto, the chef-owner of Cannara’s Perbacco restaurant numerous times and eaten at his excellent restaurants countless times.  And while we  designed the Cucinapalooza tour to be something different that other cooking tours – a relaxed, unrushed cooking experience – more of a journey than a destination – we have always found our time cooking at Perbacco to be exactly that, an hours long (nearly days long) journey of discovery with Ernesto as pilot and us as copilots and grateful passengers.  Ernesto is good company.

The point is that we did not need to change Ernesto’s m.o. or approach much in order to achieve our goals.  One of our primary Cucinapalooza goals was to practice a subject matter in depth and so we asked Ernesto if he could design or propose a program where we would explore the many ways in which meat dishes could be prepared.  He obliged and then some.  More on that below (and in our featured video).

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It is time for a small confession.  The opening line of today’s post “that it is truer still that today’s itinerary began in Ernesto” is not actually true at all.  Our day actually began with Jennifer.

Jennifer McIlvaine is a Pennsylvania born expat who has found love and happiness, a career and family in Italy.  And although our paths seem to have crossed time and time again, we have never quite been on the same cycle and gotten to know each other.  That despite the fact that she is one of the few other Americans living in our tiny village of Cannara.  Or that we share a mutual interest in food, wine and Italian culture.

We first came across Jennifer back around 2008, when we were just getting to know the area and were following the well worn path of visiting Americans of becoming devotees of Salvatore Denaro and his Foligno restaurant il Bacco Felice.  At one long dinner at Salvatore’s, as the hours passed and the morning sun became more and more perilously close to rising, as we were saying our goodbyes to Salvatore for the nth time (hint, n>10) his eyes suddenly opened wide and he excused himself, running next door or down the street to say Happy Birthday to an American woman who had worked for him but was now working in her own restaurant just down the street.  A few minutes later he brought his good friend Jennifer back with him and we met her for the first time.

A couple of years passed before we saw Jennifer again, this time in Cannara after we had heard that she and her husband, an Italian who manages a local winery, were moving into town.  We baked a cake and dropped it off at her home, but with the pandemonium that was going on with the moving, we did not stay.

When we were planning our Cucinapalooza activities, we wanted to be sure to utlize every possible moment for talking about, thinking about and doing cooking, getting opinions, suggestions and wisdom from as many practitioners as possible.  From this grew an idea to invite local chefs to breakfast so they could talk about their particular specialties and passions and so we could ask them what was on our minds or get their ideas about particular recipes, ingredients and combinations.  Our Cannarese neighbor Jennifer really fit the bill.

So for an hour she started our day around our breakfast table, her newborn contentedly sleeping in her stroller.  Jennifer gave us, in perfect English, her thoughts on everything from pizza dough to how to grill a bistecca and where to buy it and what life is like in Italy.  With the sensitivity of an Italian and the sensibilities of an American borne of experience and professional training she helped us take some baby steps at least in bridging this culture gap that can never truly be bridged and perhaps which should not be fully bridged.  It was an hour well spent, giving us yet another perspective on food and life in Italy.

And as we sat down to lunch many hours later at Perbacco, having spent several hours with Ernesto and Anna Rita learning the secrets of preparing meat, once again we were joined by Jennifer, this time not just with the newborn but with her soon to be three year old daughter.  Upon their entrance into Ernesto’s restaurant, it was obvious that they had spent much time here and with Ernesto and his family, amd her daughter was doted on by Ernesto who took her back in the kitchen and gave her cookies.  What a wonderful example of how we Americans can move easily in Italian culture, how much we can benefit from it while not giving up what it means to be American.  In this regard we can only hope to do as well as Jennifer.

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Back to Ernesto, for it is not entirely fair to shortchange the extraordinary day spent with him.  We did indeed learn to prepare meat dishes in many ways. At the restaurant we prepared a veritable who’s who of the quadriped world for finishing later in the afternoon at the villa.  We roasted it (porchetta or pork shoulder), barbequed it (pork and chicken skewers wrapped in caul fat), pan seared it (prosciutto wrapped filet), boiled it (muscoli of vitellone), sauteed it (ragu of mixed meats), simmered it (veal cheeks) and baked it (lamb rib chops), the latter one more of a traditional American dish – Shake and Bake (“it’s not fried chicken, Ernesto, it’s Shake and Bake.  An we helped!”).

Moving back to our villa to finish the work we started at Perbacco, we used every source of heat available to us – our outdoor barbeque, our outdoor wood burning stove, our indoor oven, a pressure cooker and stovetop burners.  Perhaps next time we will cook something in the living room fireplace, but that will have to await Cucinapalooza II.  All this wonderful food enjoyed in the comfort of our own villa in the company of Ernesto and his lovely wife Simona.  This is what Cucinapalooza is all about.

To take a peek of what the day had in store, watch our video diary on our Experience Umbria YouTube channel.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy