Everyday Project Management

Cooking school boot camp ended yesterday.   And I’m still in Italy.   I head home on Sunday.   I figured it might be nice to have some unscheduled time after the culinary immersion to just hang out in Italy.   I didn’t leave the room until 1.   Went to a little Tratorria a block from the hotel.   And had a lovely 84 year old gent sing us an Italian love song.   Boy do I like a country where I am treated like one of the treasures from God instead of in the US where I’m treated as if I have some type of self-discipline disorder for not being a perfect size 8. In Ominvore’s Dilemma, Michael Polen says the US has a nationwide eating disorder.  After being here - where these folks eat and eat and eat - all natural, locally raised foods, prepared with no additives,  I completely agree with Mr. Polen.   We aren’t getting fatter and fatter in the US because we don’t have any self-discipline.   We are getting fatter and fatter because we are purchasing crap products with too many preservatives and additives that help the food manufacturers increase the shelf life and shelf stability of their products, but that are literally killing us.   Spending five hours a day in the company of great people, enjoying great food and great conversation is the way to live - not running from one meeting to another gulping down whatever food you can quickly get.   The US doesn’t just have a national eating disorder, they have a national living disorder.

What is odd is in the US I am pretty much invisible - a standard middle age, rotund short woman of average looks.  It’s very strange - I am very well known in my field.   Pictures of me appear in all our publications.  Many people claim they know me.  Yet when they see me in person at meetings, they ignore me - like I don’t exist - until I go up and introduce myself.   Then it’s as if - oh my god, this PM “big wig” is standing here in front of me.   When five minutes earlier, they just blew me off.   Yes we have a problem in the US of what we think “successful” people should look like.

But because of way I look, people actually treat me nicer here.   I am reading the book Heat by Bill Buford.   In his book, he mentions a restaurant in a town just south of here called Zibello and a restaurant there called La Buca.  We had our tour guide Melanie make us a reservation there for tonight.  We were warned the woman who runs the place Mariane was a force of nature sometimes prone to storms, but the food was GREAT.  

Carey practiced her Italian all afternoon making sure she had the basics down so we would do nothing to cause bad weather with Mariane.   However, when we got there, we
were welcomed with open arms.   Mariane, just loved us.   She showed us her “cantina” - with all her salami’s, cheeses, proscuitto’s, and wine barrels.   She had her son-in-law wait on us since he spoke very good English.   We were treated like royalty.   Maybe she doesn’t like the skinny US reporters who visit her?   She was very nice to us.

The big adventure with going to La Buca was just getting there.   We had not ventured out in the car since we got here.  And getting here was a very disorienting experience.   We left for La Buca right as it was getting dark, and it was raining.   We made it there without getting lost - and had an hour to drive around.   So for another adventure we decided to gas up the car.   At the station, we couldn’t figure out if the car took diesel or regular.   After much discussion with the gas station attendant Fabio and his friend Stefano, I decided to google the make and model of the car on my Iphone - both guys looked at each other and said Google - SI, Google and were nodding their heads up and down.   Very funny - yes the answer was on google - it took diesel.

One last day in Italy before we head back to the States.   I think I might find some type of cooking school in residence back here where I can come live for a couple of months.   Who would not want to be where you are just totally loved for who you are - instead of being dismissed by the general population since you don’t live up to some ideal of what others think you should be?    I love the Italians.

This day of cooking school was spent on the bus and not in the kitchen.   However, it was GREAT.   We drove up to a lake region where the cold air from the alps is funneled down into the area along a deep lake creating the perfect climate for grape growing.   It is called the Francicorta region famous for the production of Italian Spumante.   We went to the Bella Vista winery - the crown jewel of the region.   I loved this winery being a systems engineer as everything was so carefully thought out and very artistic.   It was both elegant AND functional.   There were these little surprises every where you looked - and pointed your camera.   One sculpture, while it was interesting, didn’t illustrate the WOW factor until you looked at it through your cameral lens - where it became a christmas tree ornament with the evergreen in the background.

I had read the book Super Crunching last year and remembered reading about a guy who had created a model that analyzed number of weather factors of the main wine growing regions of the world to determine where the best wine would be produced.   He had it down to a science.  I inquired about how they used weather “metrics.”   I was told that they cut apart three onions and after three days, the onions that sweat the most, that is the month they are going to get the most rain.   Personally, I think there is a little more to it than that.   I predict it’s more like they have to cut apart these three onions on the second full moon AFTER Christmas (sometime in mid-february, early march).  Then this tells them when the next six months will have the most rain.  I will test it out later this year and let y’all know.

I just loved the geometric design of the winery.   Since I am still working on my own geometrically designed house in Nevada, I got some fantastic ideas.   The triangular tables in their conference areas where amazing.   I loved the pervasive use of arches, circles, triangles, ovals, squares that were everywhere.  I’ve used the similar design approach in Nevada - just not on this grand a scale.

We left the winery and went to the lake for a lunch on an island that was fish, fish, and more fish.   We were served five different types of fish.  Nice lunch.   THEN we were served four more types of fish.   More nice lunch.   Two hours later, extractating ourselves from that restaurant, we headed for the Olive oil pressing plant.   By now, my pants were getting tight.  HOWEVER, I had three pairs on.  As we were told it would be very cold on the boat to the island restaurant.   Recalling the cold dank day the day before, I was prepared.  I am happy to report, today with only one pair of pants on - they are still loose.  How I can go to cooking school, eat for over five hours per day, sit on a bus most of the day and lose weight is beyond me.   I think my regime of exercising a lot and eating healthy may just not be that healthy for me.

The olive oil pressing plant was very small - they were a neighborhood processor that processed all the olive oil for the surrounding olive growers.   At Academia Barilla we learned about three types of olive oils - Tuscan that is very strong and good in soups and on breads.   Ligonia olive oil - that is very delicate and good on fish.  And Sicilian olive oil that is mild and good on salad.   The olive oil we tested at the plant was an extra virgin (only pressed once) and good for salads and bread.   The version I tasted was unfiltered.   That was pretty darn bitter.   More hazing.

The third day of cooking school did not require any time in the kitchen classroom.   As we learned, the way to serve the ham and cheese of the region requires very little preparation time - you simply break apart the Parmagiano Reggiano cheese into small little chunks and you slice the Proscuitto de Parma into paper thin slices.   What is more important is the origins of these two products as there are many copycats of both this type of ham and cheese throughout the world.   So off we went to see their origins.

These tours reminded me of my childhood where my father’s idea of “seeing” the country meant seeing all the factories throughout the country.   We must’ve toured every factory open to the public as a kid.    Now in that ranking system as a kid of the factory tours - both the tours of the Parmagiano Reggiano and the Proscuitto de Parma factories, got high marks.   Why?   The tours were relatively short and at the end, we had lots of free samples.

I learned at the Parmagiano Reggiano cheese factory that local lore says this cheese increases virality in men.   I think the quantity required is something more than a little blue pill, but something less than the entire round of cheese.   If they lock in on this marketing, the price they can charge for their cheese will soar.   However, it will then likely be banned by the US FDA because of the strength of the pharmaceutical lobby.   So, keep this a secret please.    HOWEVER, you need to get the real deal.  Maybe it’s because of what the cows eat in Parma that create this unique feature.   It’s a variety of herbs in a grass like mixture.  Or it might be the enzymes in the cheese.   Maybe the cheese is like wine in that after a couple pieces whoever you’re with just gets more attractive?   Maybe it’s a pheromone olfactory aphrodiasiac?   That would explain why they love amply endowed woman of short stature who eat a lot of cheese - yes this place is good for my ego.

I also learned that when the cheese maker scores an X on the cheese rind - it does NOT mean X-TRA special.  It means the cheese is somehow defective.   For some reason, lots of these X-rated cheeses end up in the US being sold as the real thing.  Buyer beware.

The stuff that is sold in the little green jars called Parmesaen cheese and the wider distributed small packages of parmesaen cheese are NOT parmagiano reggiano cheese.  The real product is a much moister cheese - it actually won’t grate like the cheeses we purchase in the US unless it’s allowed to get stale over several weeks.   If you want the real stuff - look for the markings on the rind that are in this picture.

Next it was onto the Proscuitto de Parma factory.  Fortunately this was not like a winery in as much as it’s circled by vineyards.  It was nice that this place was not circled by pig pens.   The ONLY thing in the Proscuitto de Parma were pigs legs.  And LOTS of them.

This product was the ultimate in risk management.  To create this ham, it has to be salted and kept in the cold for 90 days.   The cold salt curing technique is a way to keep the meat from spoiling.   I inquired how they did this BEFORE refrigeration as they have been making this type of ham for centuries here.   They were only able to make this ham in the time before refrigeration from November to February - probably the reason for the 90 days in the cold with the salt rub.   It ages another nine months before it’s ready for consumption.   The area around Parma used to be under the sea and there are large deposits of salts.  These are the salts used in the sale rubs.

We learned that these are BIG PIGS.   These pigs weigh in excess of 400 pounds.  There is a copy cat product Made in Canada that got the trademark Proscuitto de Parma BEFORE the real product from Parma secured the trademark.   The pigs used in Canada are smaller pigs, weighing less than 200 pounds.   So when you see a product that says Proscuitta de Parma - if it’s long and skinny, it’s most likely made in Canada, NOT Parma.  The Proscuitto de Parma will have a crown on it that symbolizes it is the real thing.   According to some women in our group, you can actually purchase this several times a year at Costco.  Also, higher end speciality deli’s in larger cities or in specialty deli’s in the Italian districts in cities will carry it.

We left the factory tour to go visit a very old castle that was now the home of the Grappa manufacturing.   Grappa is a product made from the leftover grape skins.   Since I am allergic to alcohol, I did not get to sample this one.   Based on the looks of my classmates, I considered myself lucky.   They reported that it was intense and several had a hard time breathing.   We had lunch at the old castle - it was pretty dank and cold there.   I’m not sure why living in a castle was anything anyone would want to aspire to in the olden days.  Lunch was fun there - lots of pasta and proscuitta de parma.

We got several hours off in the afternoon for good behavior (either that or we had exhausted the staff at Academia Barilla).  At 7:30 PM it was on the bus again and off to one of the oldest restaurants in the area located in a small village for a three hour dinner.   We were served “traditional” food in an elegant atmostphere.   I’m racking my brain to remember what we had - I’m sure it was more ham and cheese.