Memories of Making Homemade Pasta with Mom

I think it was love at first crank when my mother gave me the gift of my very own pasta machine. It was a miniature version of her hand-crank pasta machine with it's own little tabletop clamp and cutting heads. I don't remember how old I was when she gave it to me or if I really helped or made a mess of the dough she gave me, but I loved everything about making fresh pasta. I still do. And that machine has never once ever been considered for a garage sale or a donation and it has moved with me to every place I've ever lived thus far.

It been years since we've made it together, but I remember very clearly watching her get the big flour canister out - it was so heavy for me then. She always started with a mound of flour and it was usually on a cutting board or on a plate and not in a bowl like I do it now. I am still amazed at how she did this without the eggs oozing out of the well she made in the flour mound. I think the rule is one egg per person and I don't remember her measuring, but rather eyeballing the amount of flour needed. She would take a fork to break the eggs in the flour crater and start stirring the eggs with a fork until she knew they wouldn't run. Incorporating the flour was amazing to watch as this white powder and yellow drips transformed into something completely different in front of our eyes. After minutes of kneading the dough it evolved into a perfectly elastic beautiful, smooth, round beige ball of dough. There is nothing else in the world like the smell of simple, fresh pasta dough and it's hard to describe. It has a trace of yeast smell and it feels warm in the hands. The smell reminds me of the pure and delicious smell of a baby's skin.

I loved getting the sections of dough to feed first through the crank that flattens the dough before putting it through the spaghetti cutter heads. It was so amazing to see the piece of dough that went in one side as a chunk come out through the rollers flat and long. It seemed to grow.

I remember hanging the pasta to dry for a while. And, to keep the strands from sticking to one another, we always made sure every piece was coated with flour. The flour seemed to end up everywhere and even all over us. To not let the spaghetti strands to stick to one another is actually an important step. Trust me, you do not want take a surprise bite of two pasta pieces that cooked together. It just doesn't get cooked through or taste as good as the other pieces that swirled around in the big salty pot of boiling water avoiding each other. Fresh pasta cooks so quickly too.

I learned not to mix the flour with water as it turns into a cement like substance that isn't fun to clean and scrape off of most surfaces. I also learned to wipe down my machine with a dish or flour sac towel and to never let it get any water on it. Since she taught me that, I am proud to say that my machine is still in good condition and one day I will be able to pass along the pasta maker and her lessons to my unborn children. To this day I can't think of a more comforting fragrance than raw dough and the scent makes me feel alive. Making fresh pasta can be cathartic. It forces one to slow down and be in the present and feel. It was a great stress-reliever in college and it's a real treat in our busy, fast-paced lives and society. Who needs a massage when you can just knead some dough!