Accomplishment

In the midst of an current pandemic, I am happily ensconced in my home, surrounded with dogs and navigating working remotely. The past weeks have been stressful, so much so that I had the worst anxiety attack that I’ve had in years, amid a conference, and during the discovery that I can’t actually tolerate high altitude — at all. Thank you to all of you who checked up on me for the past week or so.

So, this pandemic has been the best thing to happen to me, but for all the wrong reasons. For the next several weeks, I don’t have a four hour commute; I don’t have to wake early and stay up late; I don’t have to put makeup on and tumble-press my clothes in the dryer in the morning; I don’t have to take one or two trains, a bus, and drive home. I don’t have to balance social obligations or ongoing medical appointments (maintenance) or much really. I have plenty of food and supplies in the house. The dogs are thrilled to be getting so much attention and love. Interestingly, I’m also eating less.

With all this glorious time on my hands, I have finally had a chance to do a few things around the house. I’ve thoroughly cleaned, laundry is done, dishes make it to the dishwasher every night. And, like many, I’ve had time to cook.

I do enjoy cooking. Part of it is a technical challenge, part is the I really like to eat. On my list since forever, is to sit down and make pasta from scratch. I know that it’s not hard, but I haven’t done it and time has always been a factor. Part of the challenge has been that instructions for making pasta are hopelessly inadequate. Pasta needs a certain amount of tacit knowledge which is never described. When it is, the language is florid and unhelpful. Even Cooks Illustrated failed me on this one.

But with the experience I had from being “taught” to make it from two women nestled in the Umbrian hills two summers ago, this lovely video that provides more mechanical instructions, and watching my mother and grandmother make holiday ravioli, I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.

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I started with three large eggs and two cups Hodgson Mill premium pasta flour. I wasn’t convinced of the high semolina proportion, but I went with it. It needed some water. I don’t know how much. I added enough until the dough stopped breaking into chunks in the processor.

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Turning it out, it was sticky and tough and I had worried that the flour was wrong or the proportions weren’t correct. I went through the chore of kneading on faith and eventually it did come together as expected.

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At this time I got lazy and tired, and put it in the fridge for the night. But the next day I rolled it out and cut basic ribbons. Rolling was time consuming and way more work than I expected. I will be buying a pasta machine if I intend to do this regularly. And the “roll it until you can read a newspaper through it” is actually true. Once I could see the wood grain of my block, I stopped.

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The mass of ribbons was a glorious sight to see. The floury, eggy smell was amazing.

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Two minutes in the water, which I did over salt, was perfect. Topped with a homemade meat sauce, it was perfect.

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A small accomplishment to be sure, but it feels good amidst all the stress and chaos to have this one little thing for myself.