We signed up for dinner and a cooking class with Eleonora Galasso and were very disappointment and…read moreunimpressed.
First of all, despite what Eleonora might have said to the food professional whose interview we read, the palazzo where she holds her classes in not in HER family. It belongs to the Piccolomini family (as in the Pope), and she is hired help. She pays a fee to the family to use the kitchen and also a percentage of whatever she makes doing her dinners and cooking classes. Although she says it is "in the family," it is NOT her family...very misleading.
For dinner, we were the only ones there. She started with small goat cheeses rounds and Pulgiese taranelli....we saw the goat cheese rounds the next day at the deli on Campo de' Fiori (4 euros, and we got about half of them). An appetizer at the table was bruschetta on "fiasco," which was basically a soggy water-soaked bread. Sorry, but my bruschetta is better!! The "main" course was risotto with a bit (literally) of Italian sausage. Some cheeses, then a "charlotte" with apple and pear. Not a bad meal, but questionably worth the 75 euro price each (I think she served the online reviewer more expensive ingredients? Shrimp, pistachios?)
We had also signed up for the cooking class the next day (truthfully, we signed up for her because Andrea Consoli wasn't available). We again were the only particpants. We walked around the Campo de'Fiori (where we have spent plenty of time in the past) with her, while she bought (literally) one onion, one celery, one zucchini and and an eggplant. Although my cooking partner had told her ahead of time that she didn't like eggplant, Eleonora insisted on making a pasta with eggplant, insisting that my partner would like it. My partner felt embarrassed at Eleonora's insistence so agree to try it. I wondered if Eloenora has a very limited repertroire of recipes that she knows how to make and thus her insistence on making something with eggplant.
The cooking class was painful. She is NOT a cook. Gently, we tried to gradually explain to her where we were coming from...Sonoma County, amazing access to fresh organic produce, plus our own huge garden of organic produce, lots of cooking experience....thinking she might adapt her "lessons." I have worked in the food industry for a number of years, working with world-reknowned chefs. I understand cooking. The pasta she had us make by hand was so dry even she struggled to pass it through the pasta machine. The end result was boring (pasta with eggplant, quite dull and tough, and not enjoyed by my non-eggplant-loving partner).
Eleonora promised to send us the recipes from the cooking class, although we have yet to receive them (nearly two months later, although I've emailed her several times). Having worked in cooking schools here in the US, we feel she should have had the recipes ready during the class. But more importantly, we felt completely ripped off. The class was very expensive (as I recall, it was about 230 euros per couple), the food items were very low cost, and as relatively experienced cooks (which we tried to share with her), we felt we learned little and would never recommend her class or dinner. She had asked us to help her establish her business in California (we live in the Wine Country)...not going to happen.
