We spent the day exploring more of Conversano, visiting several museums and having an assortment of anitpasta for lunch at a restaurant that stayed open just for us! Being a small town everything closes from about 1:30 till 4, so we had a rest like the rest of the town. We were picked up in the late afternoon and taken to a farm at the edge of town for our cooking class. There were the 4 of us, plus 3 from Germany, so it was quite the international group! The chef's were Marina who's farm it was, Mara, and Granata (Marina's mother). The cooking classes are a 2nd job for Marina & Mara, and they do it because it's something they enjoy. Their class was very informal and fun. We made (or watched being made) foccacia, a pasta called Cavatelli with a white bean puree and eggplant, bread-balls with tomato sauce and for desert Sporcamuss, which means "dirty face", it's a pastry with custard inside which squirts out when you bite.
In the middle we had a break for wine, cheese, olives and biscuits called taralli. We sat outside in the farm courtyard with the stone floor and lemon trees and watched their cats at play. The farm is about 500 years old, built of stone like everything around here.
When we had finally finished our cooking, we sat down to feast with Marina & Mara's family, with talk in 3 languages, and everyone managing to understand each other. We finished with home-made limoncella, and walnut liquor.
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