I woke up excited about the day.  A cooking class!  Ken and I went to breakfast, saw Johnny buiding the fire in the pizza oven, and hung around until 10:30.  Pamela’s two part class was wonderful.  Part one was on pizza and we concentrated on making the dough for 13 people she had coming for a pizza lunch.  She explained about the flour and the yeast and we really got to refine our process.  While the other three used bowls to mix I got to do it on the table with a well method like pasta. 

Since I’ve never been good at that I really welcomed the opportunity to get some technique from an expert.  We all kneaded and kneaded.  Even Ken got into the action.  While the dough did its first rise, we had an olive oil tasting.  We tasted Pam and Johnny’s, Poggio Etrusco oil and a Pugliese oil too.  There is so much to learn, I’m sure we barely scratched the surface but it was packed with information.

We had to take the risen dough and make it into smaller balls for the individual pizzas.

Before lunch we all drank prosecco and had some treats from Pamela’s kitchen.  I loved the Tuscan prosciutto and the fried sage leaves.

We met a bunch of new folks at lunch time and we each made our own pizzas with the toppings already prepped for us.  Here’s mine:

Peppers, mushrooms, mozzarella and sausage

The class/lunch didn’t end until 4ish and I really needed a nap!

Around 6, we headed for Montepulciano, about a 15 minute drive from here.  We parked near the St. Agnese church and walked through the lovely town.  Every other store is a wine tasting shop but we couldn’t possibly. 

We took a scenic drive home through grape fields and olive groves.  Salad was great for dinner and we talked and read before bed.