Boot camp Italy - Napa day 4

Today we tackled Italy in boot camp. On the docket was pasta making, mozzarella pulling, and gnocchi making. I was a bit surprised that only one other person in the class had made pasta previously. I drew the short straw on my team and was tasked with making a salad - without a dressing. So, that was a bit of a bummer.

Since I had nothing but time on my hands, I got to float around and see what the other teams were doing. My overall take away is that home cooks don't taste their food often enough during the cooking process. We had a lot of dishes that were either pretty bland or people tried to season once everything was done, so it was super salty in spots and totally bland in others.

Mozzarella pulling is an interesting party trick, but I don't know that for us mere mortals it's worth it. While I didn't get to try my hand at it, I believe I learned enough to finally get over my gnocchi yips. I suspect that I've been too timid in the amount of flour I've added. I also suspect that I actually haven't worked the dough long enough to develop structure. So, in fear of making tough gnocchi, I've erred into making completely structure-less mush.

After school today we headed down to St. Supery. This is another winery that we've driven past for years and have never stopped by. Once again, we were pleasantly surprised here. The wines were by and large very nice and surprisingly affordable. Our tasting host was...too much. Turns out he's going to be in Miami Beach later this month at the same time as us. Fingers crossed we don't actually run into him while we're there.

Dinner tonight was at the newly-opened Hal Yamashita. Excellent little Japanese restaurant! I hope they do well. I find that Asia food is an excellent foil to all of the wine and European cuisine in the valley.