The Fairies Tale

Do you ever have those experiences where you're expecting something to be 'cool', and for it to be 'a great experience', but you're not expecting anything more than a story to tell? Or those faint but real suspicions that some necessity of life has the potential to be something so much more enriching, fulfilling, gratifying, completing than even you ever thought it could be? Or one of those times where the newness you're experiencing blend with the familiar in such a way that you're completely exhilerated at the same time that you're comforted? Well, if none of this is ringing a bell, you need to get your ass to Le Fate.

Here's the story:

Michelle had approached me and a few of our other friends several weeks ago with the idea to take a cooking class that's advertised on some bulletin board in the AUR A building. Obviously, this sounded really cool, since I love to cook and to eat and experience new foods, but it was 35 euro, and I'm also kinda stingy, so I was leery. She got in touch with Andrea (who she assumed was a woman), who is the chef and owner of the restaurant Le Fate, in the meantime, giving us all some time to think it over.

The deal was: we would show up at the restaurant at around noon one day, and Andrea would teach us and help us cook a traditional four-course Italian meal. Then, we would eat said meal and probably make a lot of yummy sounds, and all of this for 35 euro. Well, given my love of cooking, I decided that this was actually really reasonable for the experience and the tasty food that was sure to be included. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

Casey, Michelle, Christine, Amanda and I met up this morning at 11:15 to walk to Le Fate, which is on Viale di Trastevere only a few blocks from my house, and close to the tram stop that gets the rest of them down from Monteverde. It's a beautiful fall day in Rome today, which is basically indistinguishable from a beautiful summer day in Montana, weather-wise. It's sunny and bright, but still pretty hot for what one expects of fall; it's about 70 degrees-ish. So we walk the few blocks to Le Fate, which I've been to before last week with Michelle to put the down payment on the class. We didn't meet Andrea then, but rather HIS (yeah, Andrea. Like, Andrew.) brother, who helped us settle the payment. I was immediately enchanted last week by this place.

Le Fate literally translates as The Faeries, and the restaurant, which probably seats around 25 people at maximum capacity, is all decked out like a woodland glen. The chief source of light, besides the big front windows, are twinkle-lights. There are carved wooden gnomes (but the effect is whimsical, not tacky) and big wickerwork chandeliers hung with grapes and little disco balls... it's trendy and sweet and homey all at the same time. I immediately loved it. Like, it's a restaurant with a faerie theme. Okay? But it totally works. It seems like it just grew up there; there's nothing contrived about it.

So we show up today and the woman who opens the door doesn't look to be much older than we are; turns out she's 28. Erica greets us warmly in English, and I immediately think "woah, this girl's from Michigan!". Yup. Turns out she grew up in the Detroit area (at this point, who didn't?) and went to college for awhile at Western (that's in Kalamazoo, folks. Queue the singing puppets...) before transferring to AUR. She now lives in Rome with her boyfriend, Andrea, and helps him organize what I guess have become a very popular restaurant and VERY popular cooking classes. She's totally chill and friendly, and seems the ideal young expat to me. She's still authentically American, but she gives off an air of being more a citizen of wherever she happens to be at the time. I feel an immediate desire to be friends with this woman.

And then Andrea shows up. It's not even possible to describe this guy. He's 32, but he's been in the kitchen basically his whole life. He's vibrant and funny right off the bat, and very, very beautiful. Like, what all Italian men should look and act like. Erica is one lucky woman. He starts off the class with this incredible, joyful intensity of a man who really loves what he does. He talks about the objectives of the class, which is to help us to experience real Italian cooking, and more specifically, real Roman cuisine. He makes it very clear that one of the four courses of our meal is going to be a very regionally specific Roman dish. He's Roman. Lived in Rome his whole life, though he's very well traveled and speaks beautiful, though not perfect, English. I am immediately drawn to the guy's energy. He knows that he's very good at what he does, and he wants to share what he knows with other people. I admire this quality, since it's one I hope to acquire for myself, in my own work.

Well, I'm chomping at the bit to get started, especially after he talks a little bit about Le Fate and what his values as a chef and businessman are. Everything he uses in the kitchen, the wines, the meat, the produce... all of them are local. Local, as in, he came back from the market with the ingredients for our meal about ten minutes before we got there. And not a market like Meijer, but the very street market with stalls and vendors that I passed on my way to his restaurant. Since everything he uses is local, he only cooks those things that are in season. On his menu right now are fiore di zucco, pumpkin flowers, which will only be available for about another two weeks before they're gone until next summer. He shops each and every morning and designs his specials for the day based on what he's inspired by at the market.

Here's what we're cooking: a soup (not a traditional first course in Italian cooking, but Andrea has a ton of friends from AUR who always bugged him about making them soup when he was our age, so he knows Americans like it, and it's a nostalgic thing for him to make it with us) of leeks, potatoes and pumpkin, flavored with sage, rosemary, bay and juniper, followed by fresh pasta (yeah, we're going to learn to make pasta) with a sauce of mushrooms and fresh cherry tomatoes with parsley and romano (yes, ladies and gents, thats romano as in ROMAN), followed by saltinbocca (beef, NOT veal, as Andrea explained to me when I asked, because the Roman area not like Montana is it's amount of open space, so it's not economical, and never was, to kill a cow before it was big enough to feed more than a few people. Why waste the potential for more food?), and finally individual chocolate soufles that, Andrea said, is not only the best recipe he's ever found for soufle, but will also keep in the fridge for up to two weeks before you cook it. Sweet in more ways than one.

We got in his kitchen, which was close quarters for the six of us, with Erica popping her head in every now and then to chat when she got bored on the computer. Andrea not only teaches the HOW of things, like how to chop leeks without cutting all your fingers off (I'm a lot more experienced in the kitchen than some of my friends), but the WHY, like the thing with the beef, or a very interesting thing about garlic: he said that Italians don't like to use it in the same quantities that Americans think they do. He ways that garlic is very heavy on your digestion, and the reason that Italians even use it in the first place is because of it's nutritional value, which is all in the skin, which Americans peel off. So, if you're cooking with garlic rather than eating it raw, you can just crush it and leave the skin on and it won't hurt anything, and will actually help your heart and your cholesterol. Fun fact and misconception I've always held about Italian cooking.

So anyway, we're cooking along, all getting to help with different parts of the meal; I actually made the pasta dough by myself, a skill which I've always wanted to acquire but was a little intimidated by. I don't know why, now that I know how. Fresh pasta is the best kept secret in the world, in my opinion. A) It's stupidly simple to make, B) It only has four ingredients, tops and C) these ingredients are cheaper than buying already made pasta like Barilla, etc.. Holy crap. What a revelation. I may not ever cook with dried pasta again, given the choice, because of how easy, cheap and wonderful the fresh version is.

The first course is finally finished (by yours truly) by blending the potatoes, leeks and pumpkin together with a stick blender (which is, incidentally, a good gift idea for me if you're stuck), and then served with fried bread. Yeah. Fried bread. Two of the best things in the world coming together at last. I can tell you now that this is categorically and without a doubt the best soup that I've ever eaten. It's warm and comforting and really, really simple. You can taste each ingredient and the freshness of it right through the beautiful, creamy texture. It was all I could do not to lick the bowl.

When Andrea brings out the second course, it's really funny to see the pasta we made by hand (pici, which is like hand-rolled spaghetti, but much fatter) in this beautiful, delicious and yet again very simple dish. We joked that we could pick out the ones that each of us made based on technique. The saltimbocca is next, and this term literally translates to "jump in your mouth", because the Romans eat it as a sort of finger food. It's a very thin slice of tenderloin, on top of which is placed a piece of proscuitto and a piece of Ememtare cheese (although Andrea said any mild cheese will work). This whole thing is folded over and a sage leaf is secured on top with a toothpick. Then it's cooked over low heat in butter for a few minutes. How could that be bad?

Throughout the meal, Andrea and Erica sit and eat with us, and we talk about everything from our majors to what everyone's opinon is of New Jersey (mostly not favorable, if you're wondering... NJ has a really bad rep here for some reason...) to where New England is. Andrea is confused because he's under the impression that it's a state, and that it's somewhere close to Wisconsin. It takes a little while, but we get there in the end. We laugh and drink wine and Erica and Andrea ask us what we like about Rome. They're both very impressed that no one says The Coloseum, but both make a face when I express my love for the water fountains. Apparently the water tastes like hose water. Apparently this is very okay with me. Andrea talks about how he and his dad started this restaurant, about how he and his brother run it now with their parent's help... Erica helps us enumerate the differences between Italy and the States... they're really warm and friendly; the kind of people you just want to be friends with.

The chocolate soufle comes out of the kitchen in Andrea's capable hands, each decorated with "Le Fate" and each of our names in Creme Anglaise around the edge. Delicious doesn't even begin to cover it. Finally, after around 5 and 1/2 hours spent at Le Fate, we take our leave of Andrea and Erica with hugs and kisses and promises to return for dinner sometime, and very VERY full and sleepy.

Rome in the afternoon is beautiful, with the soft light coming down through the trees that inexplicably still have leaves on them. I'm so content and happy, but also really excited by the things that this restaurant and the people who work there represent. Local, real food cooked with passion and love and tradition by a guy who really likes food and really likes people, and a couple who seem really cool and together, even though their cultural backgrounds are so different. The whole thing just seems like an essay on the way different kinds of love: familial, professional, personal, cultural... can all blend into such an amazing, satisfying and altogether unique way... rather like an incredible pumpkin soup. Moral of the story: best 35 euro I've ever spent. Really, the best expenditure of money I've made in QUITE a while. And worth a hell of a lot more.

If you're ever in Rome, and I sincerely hope that my descriptions have piqued your interest in this city I'm falling for more than they've put you off, I can't recommend this restaurant, or these classes highly enough. It was as close to a perfect experience as I can imagine. Here's the website: http://www.lefaterestaurant.it/home.html. I submit the above as the highest testament that I'm capable of. Buon appetito!