The Wanna Be Italian

I think that I was born in the wrong country. Every little fiber of my being tells me that I should have been Italian. I'm sure many people believe this because they are fans of pizza and spaghetti. Not me, I think I should have been Italian because I love my familia, the great fashion houses of Gucci and Valentino and mostly because I sincerely think that the only way to eat pasta is when it is made from scratch.

If I was a true Italian, then I would have a huge family and especially a huge mama who would hand down her two hundred year old recipes for pastas, insalates and tiramisu. She would be nothing like Sofia of the Golden Girls, instead more of an Isabella Rossellini mixed with Giada DeLaurentis. My Italian husband would be a Rocco DiSpirito incarnate and I would take my little, pink Vespa to the local farmers market where I would meet up with my sisters, take in an espresso con panna and then terrorize the local farmers, demanding the best, and freshest produce.

Since I am not Italian, I shall have to resign myself to adopting the culture through my culinary exploits. I vow to make all my pasta from scratch, never again allowing a box of Golden Grain to enter my household. I also commit to tossing my pizza pies in the air as I am kneading the dough and I promise to throw my linguine al dente against the wall to check for doneness.

Firmly ensconced in my Italian fantasy life, I am listening to Pavarotti as you read along, sipping cold pinot grigio and embarking on my first homemade ravioli with beef. The filling has already been made. A quick saute of onions, butter, carrots, celery, ground beef, and seasoning cooked along merrily with a full cup of red wine. Once cooled, it went into the food processor where it was blended into a light and fluffy mousse that will be the filling for my pasta.

My dough was created also in the food processor, and from there it was rolled into long, lean sheets of pasta that was cranked through a pasta rolling machine. It's such a funny thing making pasta at home. There is flour everywhere and the dough that you use gets cranked and cranked and then cranked again until the little fist sized balls of dough get squeezed out into long sheets of pasta-y goodness. They are so long in fact that you actually have to take a knife and cut them to make it easier to handle.

I'm sure that my fantasy mama would knead, roll and cut the dough by hand, but I am glad to admit that my fantasies do not include cutting out modern equipment like food processors and KitchenAid attachments.

It was quite fun to make the ravioli, turning the pasta just so, lining up the savory filling, pressing the pasta back down and cutting out cute little squares with my pastry wheel. Cooking the fresh ravioli is also so much easier, because it is so much softer,and in 3-4 minutes it's done.

Tonight my in-laws came to dinner. They are good people and very all-American so I worried a little that my dish might not be the big hit that I had hoped it would be when I planned it. It wasn't until we sat down to eat that I realized it was probably not such a smart idea to serve an un-tested recipe to a group but I figured that if all else failed we could take them to Marie Callendars instead.

I needn't have worried. We started with a warm salad of green beans, edamame, and cherry tomatoes that I had left to marinade in a vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic, dijon, soy sauce, honey and chili paste. It sounds a little odd but it was Italian-Asian fusion. The main course was the beef filled ravioli in a pomodoro sauce made very simply of tomatoes, garlic, basil and sauteed in olive oil. My in-laws seemed impressed.

What I realized tonight is that love for cooking can season the food and that you don't have to be an Italian to cook like one.