la cucina americana

well, friday night we conducted our first american cooking school. this is a part of our friday night activities in an attempt to let our students practice/hear english and strengthen our relationships with them by doing these fun things together. we had 10 attendants and we prepared all day friday.

this is how it went down: since debbie had done this before and is a cooking wizard she was the captain. she typed up sheets for each dish and we made "prep trays" for each dish with every ingredient, utensil, bowl...that she would possibly need. while we made the prep trays, debbie prepared the actual meal so that after she demonstrated each dish we brought it out (already prepared) for them to eat. after it was over, we cooked all the "demonstrated" food, so there were plenty of leftovers (thank goodness).

this was our menu:

sweet tea with lemon :)

pot roast (with potatoes, carrots, onion, and celery) and gravy

steamed green beans with butter, salt, and pepper (yum)

yeast rolls with butter (yes please)

berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream (thank you maam)

prep trays

some random pictures of the night:

rising rolls

finished rolls (mmmmmmmmm)

pre-baked cobbler and crust

had to taste it

finished cobbler (it even tasted better than it looks!)

last minute pep talk before the big show

our team

some of our students + emily who attended

my student sara (in the middle) and her friend carmella (you can see the wonderful decoration and set-up done by ermenita and angela in the background). i slapped a big wad of butter on my roll and showed sara that was how she was supposed to eat it, and i think she was horrified (the italians didn't touch the butter!!!)

i don't really know what our students thought about our silly food, but i think they had a great time and man, i sure enjoyed the food! cooking, kind of like gardening, is something so important to me because it reminds me of time spent with the most important women in my life. helping prepare this wonderful "american" meal was such a good reminder of those times and it was so fun to share that with our italian friends. next month we are doing thanksgiving...

p.s. if you want a copy of these amazing recipes of debbie's (and maybe some of my mom's and grandmother's) we are making a cookbook of all of the recipes we use at the american cooking schools and then at the end of the semester we are going to have them printed and sell them as a fundraiser. email me if you'd like a copy.

happy cooking!