Self-Aggrandizement: pasta perfetto

While I really enjoy cooking, I must admit I rarely get around to it. When business meals don't have me dining out, I'm likely to piece together haphazard dinners consumed while standing - a handful of deli turkey; a tomato eaten whole, like an apple; a chunk of cheese; perhaps some mushrooms and zucchini grilled up on the Foreman.

Every so often, however, I manage to block out time and really cook. Odd as it may sound, I love it for the same reason I start companies or make photographs: creating something from nothing, even on a dinner-plate scale, makes me profoundly happy and wildly excited.

In particular, I've fallen in love with making pasta from scratch. I don't completely recall what drove me to it the first time, but I remember the details of the attempt: fifteen years old, passing the rolling pin again and again over the round lump of dough, slowly flattening it into a sheet thin enough to slice, line by line, into broad, uneven fettuccine.

After the arm-exhausting rolling effort of doing it once or twice more, I requested a hand-cranked pasta press as a birthday present. Admittedly, an odd gift choice for a teenage guy, and one that got me no end of ribbing from my younger brother. But after my first cranked batch, I was even further hooked. The joy of making something from nothing, compounded by my inner child's love of the Playdough press: the sheet of dough magically thinning and lengthening with each successive pass, then cranked through the slicing wheel, the broad sheet emerging as perfect narrow strips.

Late last week, I realized it had been nearly six months since I'd whipped out the press. So I blocked in some time yesterday evening, invited a friend, and linguined away. Feeling adventurous, I decided to try making pesto sauce, which in fact turns out be remarkably simple: 2 large bunches of basil, 6 cloves of garlic, 2 ounces of pine nuts, a cup of grated Parmesan and 3/4 a cup of olive oil. Tossed in a food processor for a couple of spins, those five basic ingredients emerge emulsified and emerald green, a perfect pesto.

As an antipasto, I had bought tomatoes and mozzarella, which I sliced and topped with a bit of leftover basil and olive oil - a classic caprese salad. Paired with a bottle of wine and capped with a few store-bought cupcakes for dessert, the perfect evening.

pasta perfetto Filed Wednesday, February 18 2004.

pasta perfetto
Filed Wednesday, February 18 2004.