Homemade Pasta

On the days grandma would want to make pasta she inevitably called me to follow her into the basement. Any good Italian house had a nice kitchen upstairs but in the basement was the 'working' kitchen. An extra stove/oven for the heavy duty cooking. Grandma had a nice big table in the basement. One quick wipe down and we were ready to go.

"Go in the cabinet and get the bag of flour and the oil" were my instructions from Grandma Cha Cha (another story for another day) and she would get the lukewarm water and eggs. Watching her pour the bag of flour in the center of the table, seasoning gently with a little salt and pepper. Then to make a well in the center of the flour to add the eggs and water......folding it all to mix it. I used to think, ugh, what a mess! I was not sure I wanted to get my hands involved in the muck...but once it turned into a beautiful ball of dough, I was back in the game.

More often than not we were making cavatti....small chunks of dough that was my job to run my finger through to curl them up. We would spend hours doing it and then putting the trays full of fresh pasta into the freezer for a quick dry. If we were lucky they would be for dinner the next afternoon with leaving a little to head into hte freezer for the next special meal.

Today I find myself taking cooking classes at a local cooking store. The kitchen is nothing like what I had growing up but has become a haven for me to play again. Maybe we are not using our hands to mix the dough for a spinach pasta but we are kneading it. We always used Grandma's wooden rolling pin to get it to the super thin. When we did the thin pasta Grandma would take her little rolling cutter and make strips. None were ever the same size but all tasted wonderful. When we would make the cavatti we rolled long logs of dough and cut them into maybe 1/2 inch chunks that I would run my finger through. Today I have learned to use a pasta machine.....not electric. I gave up on that one! It amazes me each time I pull it out that wonderful flavors come from my efforts with a small machine and a hand crank.

I need to find the pasta recipe from the Italian classics class I took last week because it was very similar to Grandmas.......I love sharing the love!