My food journey has taken so many twists and turns that I would have never imagined I would ever make homemade pasta.
My family does not consist of the best cooks. I can’t name a single person in my family who I can say I love everything they make. Some people have one thing they make pretty well, and that’s about it.
Consequently, I didn’t have many examples of great cooking or great food growing up. I can even remember a time when I genuinely didn’t like eating.
Regardless of what I was eating, I always thought food was interesting. I watched FoodNewtork all the time. Shows like Chopped, Worst Cooks in America, Guys Grocery Games, Diners Drive-Ins & Dives, and Beat Bobby Flay were some of my favorite things to watch. The way these chefs cooked was miraculous, but all the skills they exhibited and the food they made felt unobtainable.
Until I met my boyfriend, that is.
He is equally as interested in food as I am, but he had a foundation of people who cooked, which allowed him to learn about and experiment with food. Together we formed food dreams we never knew we had. One of those dreams was learning how to make fresh pasta, and last week we decided to do just that.
We had a basic idea of what to do because we had been researching it for so long but decided to find a Youtube video to follow. Our main obstacle was not owning a pasta machine, so searching for a video that didn’t include one was a challenge, but we prevailed. We decided there was no better person to learn from than an Italian grandma.
We cleaned the table, prepped all the ingredients, and pulled out the rolling pin. The video portioned for 3-4 people, so we did some math and portioned for 5. However, we quickly realized our math was wrong. The dough was so wet and sticky, nothing like how it was in the video.
As we brainstormed how to fix it, my new puppy, who we had locked in the other room to minimize the amount of fur that could get in the dough, pushed her head through the gate and started wailing in fear because she was stuck. With our hands covered in flour and sticky dough, we stopped, and with the help of my brother, we released her and laughed about how incredibly ridiculous it was.
After washing our hands, we determined we needed more flour for our dough. While the dough was resting, we were so proud of having made it that far. We were so excited to see our pasta. Eventually, we took the dough out of the fridge and rolled it out.
He rolled out his dough first since we only had one rolling pin. Watching his face light up when he finally cut his first noodle was one of the best feelings. His joy and sense of accomplishment radiated off his face. He couldn’t contain his excitement, and neither could I.
When he finished, I quickly unwrapped my dough and started flattening it. Rolling out dough felt fun, like playing with your food in the way that you get reprimanded for as a kid. Cutting and unraveling my first noodle was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
The next test was cooking it. We’ve cooked dried pasta from the supermarket before, so we knew the steps. We even knew that homemade pasta cooks much faster than dried pasta. Even with all this prior knowledge, we were still astonished at how rapidly our pasta cooked.
Our homemade pasta meal was delicious, combined with some frozen meatballs and canned Ragu sauce. We loved it so much that we anxiously awaited for everyone to serve themselves so we could share the last several noodles abandoned at the bottom of the pot.
I’ve seen plenty of pasta-making fails, and I was fully expecting to laugh at how terribly our attempt ended up. Instead, it was a success. Of course, our noodles could have been thinner, and they looked a little wonky, but I think we did extraordinarily well for a first attempt. We worked together so well and had so much fun. It was a beautiful memory to share with someone I love.
I highly recommend getting together with a loved one and trying to make pasta. If you do, let me know how it went in the comments!