VIVA - Current Classes

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Current Classes and Events

AUGUST

Cooking with Olives and Olive Oil Friday, August 22nd 11:30am - 2:30pm Chef Pablo Voitzuk from Apollo Olive Oil $80 What you find traveling through the olive oil regions of the Mediterranean—where people tend to be the healthiest—is that olive oil is used on virtually everything, at breakfast, at lunch and at dinner. Food tastes better with a good oil on it. Apollo Olive Oil is 100% first-crush, cold-pressed on the only mill in America designed to maximize polyphenol (anti-oxidant) extraction, resulting in oils with extraordinary intensity of flavor and health benefits. In 2006, Apollo Olive Oil was named one of the TOP TEN OLIVE OIL PRODUCERS IN THE WORLD, by the prestigious Milan judging panel, I Mastri Oleari, the first California oil to be so honored. Check out their web site at www.apollooliveoil.com What does Extra Virgin or EVO mean? Olive oil is good for you, right? What are polyphenols? Aren’t unfiltered olive oils better? What makes a good EVO oil better than an inexpensive, ordinary olive oil? What determines the different flavors found in a good olive oil? Join Chef, Olive Grower and Curer, Pablo Voitzuk and get the answers to these and many more questions while learning to taste and cook with olive oil. Enjoy the fruits of your labors with a glass of Italian wine chosen to compliment the dishes prepared.
	Menu Crostini with Black Olive Tapenade Warm Olives Vegetable Soup with Olive Oil Tilapia with Homemade Mayonaise Olive Oil Dessert

Celebrating the Gravenstein Apple Saturday, August 23rd 6:30 - 9:30pm Chef John McReynolds $85 Slow Food Presidia are local projects that work to guarantee a viable future for traditional foods, foods that are good tasting and sustainably produced, foods that represent a sense of place or culture. The Russian River Slow Food group is working to preserve the Gravenstein apple in Sonoma county. The Gravenstein apple is a delicious apple that has a long and illustrious history in Sonoma County. It is part of our local agricultural heritage, and yet it is disappearing so fast that it could become commercially extinct. In the 1970’s Sonoma County was the Gravenstein capital of the world: today there are fewer than 10 Sonoma farmers who still make a living selling apples. Chef John McReynolds will teach us how to use the Gravenstein in every way possible from appetizer to dessert. Enjoy the bounty of our county with a glass of crisp Italian wine.
Menu Kabocha Squash Soup w/Gavenstein Apple Caponata Raw Grated Red Beet & Gravenstein Apple Salad Baked Alaskan Halibut w/Feta, Gravenstein Apple, & Pine Nut Crust Gravenstein Apple & Cherry Granita w/Olive Oil & Sea Salt

SEPTEMBER

	Italian Movie Night - Free Friday, September 5th 6:30 Food - - 7pm movie Io speriamo che me la cavo (Me, I Hope I Make It) (Ciao Professore) Lina Wertmuller 1994 Ciao Professore! is the story of Marco Sperelli, a northern Italian teacher who gets dumped in the southern Italian town of Corzano because of a bureaucratic screw- up (he was supposed to get an assignment in Corsano). At the De Amicis school, he has been assigned to teach third grade, but when he arrives, he finds the place run by the janitor. Only three of his fifteen students are in class -- the rest are out working on the streets, hustling black market goods and helping their families make ends meet. So, taking matters into his own hands, Sperelli makes a trip through the village to collect his delinquent pupils personally. This film is rich in humor, much of which is grounded in the raw language used by the children. Even in the most serious circumstances, Wertmuller never allows this motion picture to become maudlin or melodramatic. A relentlessly upbeat, occasionally-playful atmosphere pervades the film, as typified by the repeated use of the song "What a Wonderful World." Run time: 100 minutes Light refreshments and wine served. R.S.V.P. via email: viva@studyabroaditaly.com or phone: 707-824-9913

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