Rome - Day 4

Cooking Day


Yes, this is the day that most excited me.



I arranged to take a cooking class with the Roman chef Fabio Bongianni.  The day started at 9:30 with a walk through Campo Di Fiori Market where the ingredients of the day are chosen.  Then we continued with him through the streets of Rome with a tour through the Jewish Ghetto and ending up at his apartment near the Spanish Steps.  We then prepared several dishes and finished lunch around 3p.

Fabio gave us great insight to the Jewish Ghetto area and the history beneath.

 Getting our sea bass and mussels for the meal.

 Campo di Fiori market.  Fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and zucchini we picked up here.

 Slicing up the veggies.

 We made 2 different types of pasta - Cavatelli and Ravioli.  Drew is cutting up the cavatelli in these pictures.  Ella's little fingers made the perfect shape, the rest of us not so much but they still tasted great!

 Here we are rolling out the ravioli.  This is a lot of work.  You have to run the dough back through the pasta thing 6 times and it was stretched across the room before we were finished.  

 This is what the ravioli looked like before it was baked.

 This is sea bass filets in olive oil with cherry tomatoes (although they were actually a different type of tomato I can't remember the name) and a funky zucchini.  Isn't this pretty?  It also was quite tasty.

 These are the stuffed mussels.  This recipe is super easy, something I wouldn't mind trying again for sure!

 These are the cavatelli shells that we made simmering with tomatoes, mussel juice and sea bass.

 View from Fabio's apartment .. definitely NOT bad.  He lives in a great location.

 Let's eat!

 Yes she DID eat it!  I was so proud of her she tried everything and I think actually liked some of it.

 The ravioli was probably my favorite.  It was also the most challenging.  I'll probably leave this one for the real chefs.

There were 8 total in our class including the four of us.  We had fun chatting with other tourists about our travels and of course the good food and drinks.


Here are the recipes of a few of these dishes.  He promised they were on his site but NOT quite.  Guess we'll have to improvise.


Calabrian Mussels


Ravioli (with Zucchini not Asparagus)


Sea Bass Cavatelli (The recipe says taglioni but that is not the pasta we used)


 Chef's for a day.  What a great experience!  Thanks Fabio.