Week 13 - Aenya's Family comes to town

 

        Boungiorno Friends and Family,

The highlight this week was getting to spend time with Aenya's family and getting to show off the town that we have lived in the entire semester. On Friday, Aenya and I had to get up early to meet her parents and sister at the airport in Rome. In order to get there early, we had to take one of the first trains leaving the station at about 6 o'clock. This meant we would have to walk down the hill to get to the train station instead of taking the funicular. This made me very grateful to have the funicular because it makes it so much easier to get up and down Orvieto.

 

After they got settled and adjusted to their new time zone we gave them a tour of the magnificent Duomo and explained some of the meaning of the artwork on the front carvings. Aenya's dad was very interested in this and was even able to point out a few depictions of the Bible I didn't even know about. Aenya had me do most of the tour because she claimed I remembered these things better.

While they were here we also tried several new restaurants around town and tried new types of pasta and pizza. Additionally, my mom told Aenya's mom to take advantage of the cappuccinos and gelato while in Italy so we made a couple different spots to get gelato and coffee as well. I think one of the easier ways to share Italy's culture is to have something to eat and drink. When you do this you can start to notice not only the different menu items but also the way Italians enjoy a meal. For example, Italian meals are much longer and later in the evening compared to American meals. On Sunday we also went down to Orvieto Scalo at the base of the hill to explore the mall and other businesses that the city of Orvieto doesn't offer. Many of our meal conversations included wedding planning which Aenya's parents were very eager to hear about. On Monday, Aenya and her parents went to Florence where they spent two days and then they traveled to Rome to finish out their trip to Italy. I am so grateful to be marrying into such a wonderful and loving family.

The other highlight of my week was attending the goat cheese workshop. Here we got to learn about raising goats and how to produce cheese from their milk. When we first arrived one of the mothers just had a baby and they were able to show us a ten-minute-old baby goat. They had about 70 goats in total and would milk them in groups of 10 throughout the day. All of the food they fed the goats was crops they had on their farm and all of it was organic. This is very common around Italy. Most of the workshops we attended around Orvieto talked about how their crops were organic and how they disliked the big companies that sprayed their fields because the chemical spray would sometimes spread to their crops. This farm was very close to a hazelnut field owned by Ferrero Rocher that was used for chemical spraying.

After getting to meet all the goats we headed inside for a little tutorial on how to make cheese. The first step was to take some milk that had been sitting for a day or so and to take off the layer of curds on the top. They would then let these curds sit for a few more days when they would come firmer and then they could shape it to their liking. From my understanding, it seems like all the cheese they offered started in the same way but it just depended on how long you would let the cheese age that determined the firmness and flavor.

After we finished making some cheese we sat down for lunch and got to try a variety of cheeses. The first couple we tried were only a few days old, then we tried some a few weeks old, and finally a few that were a few months old. As the cheese got older the cheese became more firm and the flavor was much more intense. I preferred the cheese that was right in the middle the most but could understand why someone would enjoy the complex flavors of the older cheeses.

Aenya had a very important job of plating the cheese we made and placing frozen berries on top.

This workshop also made me think back to when I raised sheep for 4-H and made me miss raising farm animals. I'm sure if I had to get back into the routine of doing daily chores I might change my mind again. Who knows, there might just be a goat farm in Aenya and I's future.