Tuesday 26 September (Day Nine)
It was a quietish day. I’ve been looking for cooking classes while in Torino – original goal! I found a place that does classes with English if needed and have been emailing and messaging the owner of CookinFactory, Claudia Fraschini. I haven’t booked any classes yet but the schedule for Sept-Nov came out just before I left London. Today Claudia was holding an Open Day at the school and we decided to go there early, at 3pm when the doors were opening. It seemed a good chance to see the school, meet Claudia and sample some of the food that I would learn to prepare.
We decided to walk there – looking at the map, it was one straight road all the way there! Can’t go wrong. It actually did work out that way. We walked from the Porta Palatina straight down through the centre and past Porta Nuova station. Going south from there was a bit of an unknown – we have been in San Salvario but this part of the road runs along the railway tracks and isn’t very picturesque. There were factories and offices either side of the long, straight street and hardly any pedestrians. It was like we had left the city.
The walk was projected to be about 45 minutes so I suppose it took about that, perhaps an hour with a couple of bench breaks. With nothing much to report or photograph along the way we finally reached the closest main road, Sommeiller (which I am still unsure how to pronounce in Italian). On the final stretch we found a large Carrefour and popped inside to see what was on offer. This is the largest Carrefour we’ve come across just about anywhere – we always seem to be shopping in the Express version. It’s a nice bright layout with a take out counter too. However, we’re thinking we’re so close now and there will be samples so best not to eat.
This part of San Salvario is clean and tidy – the part we’re familiar with is a shabby immigrant area – so this is a contrast. Very residential with mostly newer buildings lining the streets in all directions. Then we find the side street for the CookinFactory. There’s an iron gate and an entry through a front garden area, quite posh. A woman lets us in and she’s not Claudia so Claudia must be found! English.
The school is very large with a central table area with one cooking space. Along the side is a long kitchen area and there are a few sinks and ovens. There are offices to the right of the entry and along the right to the very back is a large sitting area. What happens with all this space?
Claudia arrives. She’s a larger than life type personality, no surprise there! She’s as bold and animated as her emails and Facebook, and luckily she remembers who I am and why I’m here. I ask her what her classes are like and she explains that there are up to 18 people and after she explains the dishes they do preparation for each one (there are four courses) and she does all the cooking. Why? Because we can’t cook it if we don’t know how it’s supposed to taste. I pause a little but don’t argue.
My experience with cooking classes has all been in Toronto – mostly at the wonderful Calphalon, where I loved every minute of cooking and learning. There we were given trays of ingredients, prepared them along with the chef demo, and cooked individually. I never considered that we each might have different tasting dishes since the ingredients were identical for each of us. I did think our level of expertise with those ingredients might vary. We would eat some of the food we prepared and always took some home – often there would be two or three meals’ worth left. I still use many of the recipes I learned there. This would certainly be a very different style for me.
But I think I will take a class or two. I think the Autumn class, which highlights things like mushroom, chestnut, pumpkin… then Krish is interested in the Danish cocktail evening. I will check the date for that. There’s also a brunch we can go to and Krish thinks the one where each person brings an ingredient and Claudia must make something from it would be fun too. Anyway, first one first. I’ll book that one when my feet hit the ground.
There’s a chef cooking potatoes and pizza and those things are coming out of the oven but we have a plate of cookies – two types – and nothing else materialises. No food! Argh. The cookies will have to do. But I’m puzzled. Are we not VIP enough? Is our money not good enough? Didn’t we come far enough? My tongue is in my cheek but I was HUNGRY!
Claudia also asks, do you cook? Yes! She explains that ‘Italian cooking is different. Hmm. Well, I hope so. I don’t feel this should be scary though. I expect it to be different, after all. But not scary.
Eventually we leave and visit the Carrefour. We need milk and bread and we pick up a roasted chicken (Claudia would NOT approve) and bagged salad. This will get us through another day or three.
And we take the number 4 tram all the way back, straight line almost to the front door. Yay!
Dinner at home – roast chicken of course, and some rather tough oven potatoes.