Ohhhh, Pasta!

Making pasta is something I absolutely love doing.  It is relaxing and satisfying. Making my own noodles of every type, my own ravioli, whatever is heaven.  I like using fresh eggs from my hens and good flour.  I don’t worry about what is in my flour, or where my eggs have been. Little did I know until recently that ‘the boys’ hated it when I first started making my own pasta.  It was an event.  It was an all day affair.  If it was going well, I was pleasant and proud of my effort.  If pasta making wasn’t going so well, as it often didn’t in the beginning, and my mood matched my frustration each time I started over, it wasn’t so pleasant.  The kitchen would be a floured mess, and every spot was taken over with dough, cutting board, pasta machine, and pasta hanging over dowels precariously perched about the kitchen.  Pasta making took over the kitchen, and me.  No meals cooked, nothing done.  Just pasta. The boys, I have found out, got to the point where they could suspect it was a pasta making day.  One of them, the scout, would sneak silently down the stairs and carefully peek around the corner.  If their assumption was correct and indeed it was a pasta making day, they would high-tail it back upstairs and not come down until forced, which usually meant starving.  Thankfully, with practice, pasta making got easier and easier and the pasta itself was better and better.  Rather than an all day affair I now end up with nests of fettucini noodles drying on my island from start to finish in 1 1/2 hours.  Oh, but sadly, no more boys to peek around the corner to see if the coast is clear.