Monday, July 6th, 2009

At 8:45 AM, "Bill the marvelous cook" first took some of us around the Campo de' Fiori to show us the local market. He pointed out individual fruits and vegetables, gave their Italian translations, and also explained from where in Italy they came from, if they were locally grown or if they were purchased from elsewhere. He then took us out to the bakery, Forno's, and ordered Pizza Bianco for all of us.

Our test on The Gift

At 10:00 AM, all of us assembled into the First Floor Seminar Room of the UW Rome Center to take Mona's first test, on The Gift. The test was fairly challenging, and was designed really well to test our understanding of the material and, especially, the points of view of each of the authors we discussed. All of us then split for lunch at 11:15 AM, tired and worn out from all of the writing.

We returned to Mona's class at 12:10 to discuss two of Wordsworth's poems, The Old Cumberland Beggar and The Discharged Soldier. Mona compared Wordsworth's political agenda with our view of the homeless, and though few of us may provide them with some spare change or a small meal here and there, we never provide them with conversation and human companionship. We also discussed The Gift of the Magi, and analyzed the two characters using the Gift Bibles and the views of Mauss, Hyde, and other authors we studied. We then took an hour long break before Lisa's class.

At 3:00 PM, we met indoors for a change for Lisa's class, where she gave us a PowerPoint presentation on the development of the Renaissance. We all battled against the heat, as we learned how the Renaissance began in Venice and what some of its causes were.

Lisa's lecture on the Renaissance

We then reconvened at 7:30 PM in Mona's apartment for a cooking class, run by "Bill the marvelous cook." We sipped on our vino and juice while he talked about his career in the catering business and the heads of state that he's served. He started out by making the dessert, because that would take the longest to set. He assembled the ingredients together for the Panna Cotta, passing around a sheet of the gelatin, since none of us had seen it in sheet form before.

Some of the students then helped in preparing the rest of the meal. The other entrees included a risotto with two cheeses and baked chicken with a tomato sauce. Mayme and Yogesh helped with cutting up the beans and Peter and Anand helped cut the bread. Erin also used the new onion-cutting technique Bill taught us to perfectly dice an onion. We ate appetizers of bread with two types of cheese, including Talleggio, and also some salami piccante. We then feasted upon the cheesy risotto and the baked chicken, followed by the panna cotta with peaches. It was a fantastic meal and we all learned a lot about Italian food and culture, and how to cook.