The bus moved along quickly, despite Rome’s busy and sometimes winding, narrow streets. The cooking class Tammie and I had signed up for was several blocks from our Airbnb apartment. After riding for what seemed to me a long time, my daughter finally turned to me and nodded. Our stop was coming up.

Even before the bus lurched to a stop, we were on our feet moving toward the exit, clutching the handrails. When the bus pulled away a moment later, I looked around and asked, “Where is this cooking school we’re going to?” Tammie studied the instructions on her phone and motioned toward the end of the street, saying, “We have to walk a block or two.”

Hot, late afternoon sunshine beat down mercilessly on us as we approached a shaded street corner. Next to it was a large, multi-street intersection. My daughter urged, “Come on, Mom. We need to cross here, now. The traffic light is in our favor.” A tall cement wall on the other side of the street looked like it was holding back one of Rome’s famous seven hills. In the wall was an opening, and as we approached, I realized that it was a steep stairway with weeds growing out of cracks.

At the top of the stairs, we found an unremarkable city street lined with dingy buildings. Two men were leaning against the top of the wall smoking cigarettes. One of them motioned toward the first doorway and informed us, “If you’re here for the class, go right in.” I glanced around, looking for a sign or some other way that would indicate we were in the right place. Seeing none, I felt uneasy and unsure of myself.

Opening the door, I was surprised to find myself in a large, well-equipped kitchen. A man greeted us and escorted us past a dining room with a long table set for a dinner party to a small living room. There were six people already there sipping wine and making small talk. Our guide disappeared as introductions revealed one couple was from Chicago and the other two couples were from Newfoundland. The man returned and handed Tammie and me glasses of white, sparking wine. He noted that it was, “Prosecco.”

Now that we had finally arrived at the cooking class, I suddenly felt nervous. Would I be able to perform whatever cooking duties that I’d have to do? Several sips of prosecco and a few minutes later when the chef and his two sous chefs summoned us into the kitchen, I felt relaxed and ready to have a good time. Our newfound classmate friends were enjoyable company. We lined the butcher block counters that formed the outer perimeter of the kitchen.

The menu that evening was deep fried zucchini blossoms, steamed artichokes, and two types of noodles, cavatelli and fettuccine with complimentary sauces. Cutting up tomatoes for one of the sauces was our enjoyable, low stress first job. While taking turns stirring the sauces, we stuffed cheese and anchovy paste in zucchini blossoms. We pushed seasonings into the center of the artichoke blossoms after trimming their tough stems. A head of romanesco-broccoli and garlic was used to make the second sauce.

Making the cavatelli and fettuccine noodles was our main activity for the evening. Each student cook was given the necessary ingredients and instructed on how to mix and knead the dough. The chef and his sous chefs not only gave us individual assistance with that, but also kept our wine glasses from running dry. Seeing our cameras on the counter next to our workstations, they picked them up and took pictures for us.

We rolled the cavatelli dough into long, skinny tubes, then cut them into small bits. I enjoyed pushing the small marbles of dough against the ridged wooden board we were each given. The result was small, shallow shells with distinctive ridges.

Each person’s fettuccine dough was gathered and combined to be fed into a paster maker. This was done repeatedly until the dough was long and thin. The last run through the hand-cranked machine cut it into narrow strips.

 Our work was done. We eight students went to sit at the well-appointed dining room table to visit and drink water while the sous chefs finished the meal preparations. Changing roles, the chefs became our waiters. The battered, deep-fried zucchini blossoms were served first. I liked them so much, I nearly cried thinking about how many blossoms went to waste in my garden this summer.

When the artichoke was presented to me, I ate the entire thing, surprised that even the stem was tender and pleasant to eat.

I loved the ridged cavatelli with its green, buttery, garlic sauce, but the swirl of fettuccine drenched in the tomato sauce we made was my favorite. The shape and texture of the noodles and the better-than-average sauce was totally satisfying.

Finally, the chef-turned waiter brought out individual glasses of tiramisu. Outside the dining room window, the streetlights had come on. Tammie looked at her phone and advised our new friends, “We need to leave. The bus that will take us back to our apartment will be at the bus stop in ten minutes.”

We waited for the bus for twenty minutes because it was running late that evening. As we stood there, we discussed what we learned in the class and what a pleasant affair it was. After several minutes I sighed contentedly and said with a chuckle, “Now I know what people mean when they say their cooking with wine!”