Sad times

The convent seems to be having some internet issues. While it seems like I can still skype with Sally every day, I am unable to upload pictures. Rest assured, I am still eating my face off, it's still sunny EVERY day, and tomorrow we are going to another little city for a field trip. That's right, I said field trip. 

I feel like I don't have much to report if you can't see pictures of the food since all we do is eat. I can tell you one thing, tonight we had ricotta and cinnamon gelato and it was like eating heaven. Apparently, there is a gelato shop in town that has won numerous national awards for this particular flavor and it is NO joke. 

Also, I ate veal, how do you like them apples?!?!

Even the classes are about the food

I am doing a little background since folks have asked what I'm doing here in Italy. As many of you know, I'm working on a graduate degree in International Development at Tulane. I did my first semester completely distance based while living in VT. This summer I am spending 4 weeks in Italy, 2 weeks in Rwanda and 5 weeks in New Orleans taking classes. I feel like the order of things is sort of backwards for my taste. I start out in the safest, most delicious place, move to a place that is slightly less safe and full of malaria and end up in New Orleans in July and August where there is more crime than most developing countries and the weather will be hideous. For those of you who may not be familiar with NOLA, it will be like living in an oppressively hot swamp. 

So, back to Italy! The class I'm taking here right now is called Food Aid in Humanitarian Settings. It's the first class I've taken where I am learning something that feels like it will teach me applicable skills. The professor is incredibly smart but can also teach. My experience in academia thus far has been that the two are mutually exclusive, so I'm incredibly grateful to have a professor that is both bright and can teach well. 

We spend all day talking about food aid, how it's delivered, what it is, the logistics of delivering it, the policies and procedures of various regions, the development of agricultural technology, hunger periods, malnourishment vs. under nourishment  etc. Then we march to  our outdoor eating pavillion (as I've taken to calling it) and eat our faces off. The irony is not lost on me!

That being said, here is what we've eaten recently:

Pasta first at all meals. This one was a tomato sauce with tuna, olives and basil:

Then salad:

There was another course before this next picture but I got confused in my altered (food coma) state and forgot to photograph it. It was some kind of tender cabbage which was just lightly salted and cooked in oil. It was delicious and I'm not a girl who favors cabbage!


This is was a really delicious plate. They were little eggplant/bread balls covered with tomato sauce.

This is Domiano - one of our chefs - explaining what we were having for lunch and where it came from.

 This is the most insanely delicious, velvety custard with strawberries. Yum!!

And that was just one meal. It's insanity.

The Food

This wasn't meant to be a food blog as there is already one of those in the family (www.gruelfordinner.blogspot.com - check it) but it seems like while I'm in Italy it will be. Starting tomorrow I'll be photographing the food, it is unbelievable! 

We have two chefs - Alfredo (also knows as Italian Tim) and Domiano, both of whom own restaurants in Rome. They were hired to be our chefs for the duration of our stay here. Both Domiano and Tim subscribe to what they call the 0 kilometer food theory. They believe all the food we eat should be sourced from within a kilometer of where we are. The convent has gardens so plentiful I'm not sure they are gardens anymore or if it would be more accurate to call it a farm so it seems like this won't be a problem for them.

This morning for breakfast we had yogurt made by Domiano, bread made by Alfredo with honey sourced from a farm next door and strawberry preserves made at the convent. I just finished lunch - the largest meal of the day - and it was insane. We started with bruschetta -bread made by Domiano, olive oil made on site and tomatos and basil plucked from the vines this morning. Next was vegetable risotto made with vegetables from the garden. We then moved on to vegetable ratatouille made with vegetables from the garden here and ended with fresh fruit from the orchards on the property. Seriously, who lives like this?!?! 

Oh yeah, there was a class between waking up and eating lunch but really, it was the least substantial thing we've done today. It seems like going forward there will be class from 10-1:30 and then again from  5-7 pm. The introduction to today's class made me think pretty seriously about whether gender based violence is what I really want to focus on. I think these two classes will give me a good idea of whether or not I might want to shift my focus to food aid. 

We were supposed to go to Salento for a few days during this course to visit one of the food aid organizations but because of the crisis in Libya it has been closed to anyone who is not a government employee. It is run on a military base and for security purposes we were locked out. Instead, we will be going to Rome for a few days.

Between last night and this morning the rest of the students arrived. For the most part they seem to be children with the exception of one other grown up. When I say children I mean early to mid 20s, remember what you were like in your early to mid 20s? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Gruel for Dinner asked for a minimum of one blog post per day and I'm going to aim for that with not guarantees. 

Below are a couple of pictures of my room so you can get an idea of what the place looks like on the inside.

Delicata Squash

I am delicate. Sometimes I call myself a delicata squash because I'm so delicate. You can imagine the hot mess I am right now as I haven't been to sleep in 29 hours and am trying to stay up for another 4. Bear with me for this first post and if you must judge, do it silently!

I left BTV yesterday on time, then sat in Newark on the tarmac for 2.5 hours. First there was mechanical trouble then we had to wait for a thunder storm to pass. Luckily, I had my fancy new kindle - that's right bitches, I said KINDLE, not book - so I was entertained. The flight was fine for about the first 30 minutes but the last 7.5 hours were not so great as there were two very unhappy babies screaming their heads off. Needless to say I did not sleep a wink.

I got off the plane and was met by a very nice man named Paolo who ushered me and two other Tulane students to his fancy Mercedes for the ride to Bolsena. It took about an hour and a half and Paolo pointed things out as we went along, it was lovely especially since Paolo likes Lady GaGa and Akon.

Once at the convent we realized the three of us were the first ones here and got to choose our rooms first. Mine has this incredibly beautiful view:

It also has a king sized bed and a sink. No toilet or shower but those are just down the hall which is fine for me. Some of the other rooms have windows that look out over the cloister and have single beds, sad times for those people!

Three other students and I decided to walk into town and then down to the lake so we wouldn't be tempted to nap before tonight. The walk was stunningly beautiful and everyone here has flowers all over their terraces and front steps:

We walked down to the lake and found a place to eat by the water which was a great idea since there was a nice breeze and the sun was shining. We had a long luxurious lunch - 3ish hours- and then walked back up to the convent. The weather is absolutely perfect and it couldn't be more beautiful here. I'm now just trying to stay awake past dinner time so I might get on track a little bit with the time.

Is this thing on?

Oh hello! Instead of presuming that everyone is interested in what I'm doing and sending everyone a bobillion emails about my trip, I'm blogging yo!
I leave May 21st but before that I'll try to figure out how to post pictures and other fancy things like that. Any tips on how to use  blogspot  would also be welcome.