I arrived in Florence, Italy, in late June for a month of cooking school with no knowledge of the Italian language (I assumed that Spanish was close enough) and cooking experience gleaned mostly from the Food Network. I was not quite sure if my school, Apicius, was even legitimate-I'd signed up over the Internet. The average age of students at the school was supposed to be 25, and though my course was entitled "Tradition of Italian Food I," I wasn't sure if the first class would consist of teaching brand-new culinary adventurers (like me) how to chop, or if I would find myself in surrounded by 30-year-old professional chefs.

Luckily, class was at neither extreme. Orientation (which lasted for 20 minutes and began a half hour late) proved that the other students were mostly college kids or recent graduates who liked to cook. And while our first class didn't throw me into the fire, it did drop me directly into the frying pan, along with sweet and sour pork, sautéed shallots and a chickpea puree. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of combining all these ingredients in one sauté pan as my two partners, Mark and Adam, as well as our substitute chef-instructor, Duccio, looked on. I blamed it on Duccio's poor English.

I figured that things could only go uphill from there, and they did. Our regular instructor, Andrea, (who happened to be drop-dead gorgeous) spoke nearly perfect English and had tons of patience. By the end of the first week, I had made risotto, cookies, pesto, stuffed zucchini flowers and an eggplant timbale, among other dishes. I had even learned how to double broil!

For the first time in my life, I looked forward to waking up for a 9 a.m. class. Each morning began with a brief lecture on the main ingredient of the day (anything from proscuitto to tomato) before Andrea demonstrated the dishes we were going to make. Then we'd prepare the dishes in pairs, with Andrea coming to our rescue every so often. At the end of each class we'd savor the fruit of our labors and then clean up. My attempt to save money by substituting what we made in class for lunch went well until the fourth week, when we concentrated on desserts. I'm sorry to report that a fruit tart and a slice of chocolate cake do not, in fact, make for a healthy meal, nor for a healthy walk home in 90-degree heat.

The last day of class consisted of a two-part exam. The first part was a written test based on our text and the lectures. This I knew I could handle; I go to Amherst after all! However, the second part consisted of preparing one of the dishes we had made during the past month without speaking to anyone besides a partner. I teamed up with my roommate, China, and we waited nervously for Andrea to announce our assignment. We had all been speculating for a few days and trying to prepare as best we could. I was convinced that it was going to be the porcini mushroom risotto and had diligently practiced flipping rice grains in a pan in our apartment kitchen, much to the dismay of China and our two other roommates-half of the rice ended up on the floor and in the burners of the stove.

The written part of the test wasn't too stressful. I knew immediately that I had gotten the question on proscuitto correct (it comes from the hind leg of the pig), although I wasn't sure about some of the true or false questions (can you serve chickpeas without soaking them first?). And I knew that my essay on olive oil was superb. The question read, "Write down everything you know about olive oil." It had to be the Amherst English major's dream topic: vague, broad and basically inviting bullshit.

Next up came the practical exam. I was wrong, of course-our assignment was cheese gnocchi. China and I knew that we had to heavily salt the water to make Andrea happy; his major complaint about Americans was that we don't use enough salt in our cooking. We also knew that we had to use as little flour as possible for the dough, and that we had to let the gnocchi rise to the surface of the water and wait 15 seconds before lifting it up. And I wouldn't make the same mistake I'd made a few weeks earlier. I'd been overzealous in pouring on the sage butter, and Andrea had accused me of making soup and refused to eat the gnocchi until I'd replated it.

China and I sampled our gnocchi and thought it tasted perfect. We even thought that there was enough salt to make Andrea happy. China and I wiped the sides of the plate, garnished it with a thin slice of Parmesan cheese and presented the dish to Andrea and two other teachers. They sampled it, spoke rapid-fire Italian to one another (cracking no smiles), and then Andrea looked at us. I held my breath. "Good texture," he said with his heavy Italian accent. "Good seasoning. You browned the butter. 86!"

I've never been happier with a B in my life. And for the record, China was the one who overcooked the butter.