Sara Sheehy

I recently read a fantastic book called In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore.  The book was an incisive look at the cult of speed in our current cultural society, and ways that people are slowing it down.  Honore talks about all different facets of life for slowness – work, raising a child, exercise, sex.  He also talked about a growing movement named Slow Food.  Slow Food has banded together as an organization dedicated to the pleasure and protection of food heritage.  Yum.  They have over 100,000 members worldwide, and are based in Bra, Italy.

Inspired by this great book I decided to make an effort to engage in Slow Food more often.  I am not a stellar cook by any stretch of the imagination but I can follow directions relatively well.  Assuming I actually read them, of course.  My first sojourn into Slow Food was to pull out the pasta press and make some homemade, slow, pasta.

Fresh Pasta (dough recipe from The Joy of Cooking)

• Start by mounding 2 cups of flour on your kitchen counter.  The recipe calls for unbleached all-purpose flour, I used whole wheat flour.  Make a well in the middle of your flour mound and add 3 large eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil.

Beat the eggs inside this mount lightly with a fork.  Using your fingers, start to gradually pull flour from the sides into the eggs in the middle. This stop confused me slightly, I tried to do as the recipe said until I just gave up and mashed it all together.  Pasta still came out fine! Once it’s mixed knead the dough until it’s satiny and elastic, approximately 10 minutes. Divide the dough into 4 pieces and cover with an inverted bowl. Let the dough rest at room temperature for one hour.

This is the fun part – the pasta press!  If you don’t have a pasta press you can roll out the dough into 1/8 inch thick and slice by hand.  Cutting the dough into smaller sections I run it through the flat pasta press until it’s the right thickness, then crank the thing through the pasta cutter.  It’s a wonderfully satisfying activity.

Once the cut pasta is created lay it on a flat surface until you determine your next course of action.  In our case we cooked some of it right away, the rest we curled into loose bundles and put in the freezer uncovered for two hours.  After two hours the curls can be put together in a freezer bag and will keep for 1 month.

We threw some pasta directly into boiling water to make some dinner.  Fresh pasta takes less time than commercial pasta to cook and has a thick, wholesome taste.

Our finished dinner!  Fresh whole wheat pasta with kalamata olives, basil from the garden, tomatoes from the garden, chard from the farmers market, and Parmesan cheese.  So good!

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