Happy Halloween

Good morning all and Happy Halloween! A rainy one here in the Bay Area today.

Happened to note mention of Relish Culinary based in Healdsburg in Sunset magazine. If we were to do a vacation up in Sonoma County sometime in the future it might be fun to do some sort of event there.

Mom noted last night that the Mezzo Mezzo website had been modified and now has a video that includes some of the pictures from our Siciliy trip that I sent to Giovanni (and gave him permission to use), happily including the spleen sandwich (pane c'a meusa). No indication yet as to when they may reopen but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

BTW, the very nice song on the website is one I had not heard before but learned it is "Solo ieri" ("Only Yesterday") by Eros Ramazzotti available on iTunes (US!) and on YouTube. A lament for a lost love (i.e. "It was only yesterday that she was in my life....")
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Janet Fletcher

Alex, Cass and I went to another class at the Cheese School of SF last night -- "Cheese and Wine Pairing - Italy". It was taught by a woman named Janet Fletcher who we had not taken classes from before। As you will see from the Chron website, she has written prolifically about cheeses -- I like her style in the articles and we all enjoyed the class last night. 

A good thing because she is teaching two more of the ones we are taking this "term" - France and Spain are coming up! More than in past classes we spent a lot of time tasting all four of the wines (see below) with each of the cheeses and articulating which we felt went together the best.

As always people were all over the map on that, but it was an interesting exercise. 

I think it is fair to say that we liked almost all of the cheeses a lot (esp nos. 2 (Caprino Cremoso al Tartufo!!!), 3 (Rochchetta - the producer, Caseificio dell'Alta Langa also produces La Tur and Robiola Bosina) and 8 (the Parmigiano - a particularly tasty one). The two I think we did not score highly were nos. 1 (Fiorito Foglie di Ciliegie (wrapped in cherry leaves) and 6 (Brescianella Stagionata - a ripe "stinky" cheese a bit stronger than a Tallegio).

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