I laughed to myself and to my friend Amanda when Umberto would fervently scribble a note on a topic that he had yet to touch upon in order to remind himself. Or when he would jump around from one topic to the next, going off on tangents, that, 20 minutes later made you go, "Ohhhhh, thats why he started talking about this." I loved watching the brilliance of a mind exploding to share knowledge with others. His boisterous trills and emphatic "No!"s would sometimes turn into a chuckle "heh heh" that reminded me of a little boy eating his first ice cream cone. And I think that's where the magic lays. He spoke of every step, every scientific measure, every element of gelato, as though it were the first time he was saying it, as though it was that first, marvelously new and exciting, gelato cone.
What I learned this week is indescribable, except to say this, gelato is not just Italian ice cream. It is a science that Maestro Umberto has spent 40 years studying. In years past, students were allowed to come only for gelato week and it would cost them more than a quarter of what us Master's students pay for 3 months... and I can see why now. I feel so fortunate to have learned gelato from the best, and so lucky that Chef John Nocita saw fit to build this into his already incredible program.
Chef Sabrina Mancin, herself an incredible gelatier (the woman who restored my faith in banana flavored things, by using real bananas-how novel!), served as translator for Chef Umberto, and I know that was a handful because sometimes he would talk for 10 minutes straight and she would have to say "Aspetta!" ("Wait!") in order to translate everything he had just said. Other times she would just say, "Ok, I'm gonna give you the short version." Her endless patience with us --and our lowsy math comprehension-- is so appreciated.
I learned that math and food and science all go hand in hand. That being good at one, makes you better at the other, and that lesson is invaluable. I learned that balance is not just an outdated scale that you put rocks and beans and pitchers full of water on in order to calibrate. Balance is a method of preparation that every artisan should use to see if their ideas work, be it gelato, sauce, cooking, painting or people. Every artist must understand balance in order to be well trained. Balance is essential in the everyday ins-and-outs of life. When my sister used to say she wished she was an artist like me or my brother, my mom would respond, "You are, you are just a different kind of artist, you are a people artist." We are all artists of different realms, and we are all constantly trying to balance our art, our passions, our livelihoods, with this crazy world we live in. We must balance the ordinary with the extraordinary everyday. Balance is so much more than just a word or a formula on paper, it is a way of compensating every loss with a win. It is a way of thinking, a way of doing, and a way of being that I truly believe is evolutionary. The first quote in my notebook that I wrote down here in Italy, Day 1, our first lesson, Chef John said, "Passion is not enough, you must have technique." And technique comes from knowledge, balance, and craving for more of those things each new day.
Yesterday a friend of mine asked me what I was going to do when I got home from Italy, "Do you have more school still?" he said. I had to respond in quotations, "Well when I return I will have gotten two culinary degrees in two years, so I think I'm done with "school" for the moment." He didn't ask me why I had put quotes around school, I wish he had, or maybe he knew... But it's because I consider each new day in the kitchen to be school. A chance to learn, a chance to teach, and a chance to be schooled by someone better, wiser, and more knowledgeable than I, and a chance to balance old ideas with new concepts.
Spingerti...
Amo cucinare,
Ryn
PS- I like these pictures because they perfectly capture the ferociousness with which Umberto works... a man in constant motion is a man that never tires...or something like that
