My Love Affair with Pasta

My mother was Italian.  Her family came here in 1920 from a small town north of Venice, Italy, called Cordenons.  (No, I did not make an error and mean Pordenone.)  She was a good cook and baker.  Everyone in her family was, some being professional caterers and bakers. 

Being Italian, we ate a lot of pasta and risotto.  I mean a LOT of pasta, at least once a week.  My mother would spend all day making her own sauce.  We even made own pasta, ravioli, and noodles along with both Polish and Italian sausage when the holidays came. 

My mother's tomato sauce was thin in consistency and slightly acidic, meant to complement, not overwhelm, the spaghetti.  Not my favorite.  Our neighbors were from Sicily and made a very sweet sauce they called 'sugu'.  And yes, it tasted like sugared tomatoes.  Less liked by me than my mother's was.

One night I was at my cousin's house and she made spaghetti for dinner.  I was really impressed with her sauce.  I asked her how she did it and she whipped out an empty jar of Prego.  No slaving all day over the stove for her!  (Her mother, my mother's older sister, was a fabulous cook.)

Once I left home I swore to never eat pasta again.  And I did not for well over a year.  But pasta can be quick and easy to fix, so why not.  Over the years I grew to enjoy more varieties of sauces and noodles and it was like I could not get enough. 

Last summer I inadvertantly bought a tomato plant that produced yellow plum tomatoes.  It was obviously mismarked at the grower's.  So, I had these rather mealy tomatoes and had no idea what to use them for.  I ended up making a sausage tomato sauce that is one of the best I've ever tasted.  My first ever attempt at tomato sauce.  I was on a roll.

Last fall I took a class in pasta making.  This was fun.  How come it always seemed like so much work when I was growing up?  Oh right.  We were making pasta for 30 people in a small kitchen and I was just a kid then.  Gee, I could do this at home now.  Of course, I do not have the equipment.  When my sister asked if I wanted any of my mother's stuff, I had said 'no'.

Williams-Sonoma to the rescue.  With pasta machine in hand, my son and I made pasta and butternut squash raviolis.  Quick.  Easy.  And the raviolis only needed a butter, brown sugar and sage sauce to be delicious.

I think I could eat pasta and bread for every meal.  I have cookbooks devoted to each subject.  Several in fact.  Amazing that with so few simple ingredients, one can create something so wonderful.  Lunch today is penne with sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, sweet potato and pine nuts with a sprinkling of parmesan.  Sauce is simply olive oil, garlic, red pepper.  Mmmmmm.