Each year on our summer trip to Italia, we make homemade pasta. The tradition began when Sofia was young and Olivia just a baby and my mom making the pasta for our Sunday lunch, probably the most important meal of the week. Later both girls would be sitting with her, rolling out the dough and using dull knives of their own to form out an orecchiette. Mario has since joined in and enjoys eating the dough and making a couple of the pasta shapes to call how own too.
All three enjoy the process with Nonna Lisa from watching her prepare her big wooden board, mixing and kneading the dough to them pulling up a chair to the "table" to begin their work. Of course, they enjoy when the pasta is cooked and we're seated around the table eating all their hard work too.
Olivia is a perfectionist when it comes to making orecchiette. The pasta, which is shaped like a tiny ear, has to look just so to sit alongside Nonna's pasta. There is some frustration on her part in the beginning but she catches on fast and is on her way to making the most adorable orecchiette ever.
Mario is happy to just be with them at the board getting his hands in the dough. He takes little pieces for himself to eat raw and then continues in his "work" alongwith the ladies.
Sofia will name all the pieces as their being made. Some are chewy, spicy, sweet and then of course, perfect. The perfect ones are usually the names reserved for the ones Nonna has made.
So happy I have these memories for my kids. I made pasta with my own Nonna many years ago and those memories always bring a smile to my face. My Nonna could roll out the dough faster than I could, scoop out perfect looking orecchiette with little effort and still slide a piece of raw dough to me every once in awhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment