A pasta portal to Italy
IT’S 9am and I’ve been up since 6am boiling spinach, weighing flour and measuring butter. There’s nutmeg in the air, the ricotta is chilled, and I’ve just peeled the plastic back on a ripe piece of parmigiano.
Propped on my vege rack, above a clean-scrubbed and kettle-free counter, is a little portal to Italy in the form of my iPad merrily streaming cosy scenes from a rustic kitchen in a picturesque village called Palombara Sabina, just outside Rome, more than 18,000km away.
‘‘Ciao, chefs!’’ a perky 20-something woman says. This is our host, Elisabetta Croce. Next to her is a much older woman, Nonna Anna, our teacher, wearing a face mask. I’m about to get a virtual lesson in making spinach and ricotta ravioli from a real-life Italian Nonna.
The idea of making my own pasta always intimidated me. When I was growing up, pasta came hard as nails, in a packet, and that was that. You boiled it till you could bite through it, slapped on some tomato sauce – or creamy white sauce with bacon if you were fancy – and called it dinner.
Then, some time in the late 90s everyone started eating avocados and going Mediterranean, and no kitchen was complete without one of those stainless steel pasta makers that looked like a miniature medieval torture device crossed with a printing press.
People were making their own pasta, soft, fresh, and just like Nonna used to make in the old country.
To a suburban, Gen X, white-bread-and-tinnedspaghetti kid like me, making pasta had an air of culinary mystique that would take a long time to get past. Say, 30 years?
Standing over my sink, squeezing all the liquid out of the spinach I’ve boiled and left to chill – as directed by my virtual Nonna when I booked the class – I’ve still got my doubts, but I’m willing to roll with it, if you’ll excuse the semi-deliberate pun.
I’ve already opened the livestream, and it’s playing Italian pop and torch songs from a playlist they recommend to ‘‘get you in the mood’’. It’s working a treat.
The music is all part of the experience NonnaLive. com wants to create. What started out as an Airbnb experience, is now a virtual pandemic success story.
‘‘My cousin Chiara started hosting people from all over the world four years ago,’’ says Elisabetta, Nonna Anna’s interpreter and our host for the class.
When the pandemic happened, the Nonnas moved their business online. With half the world in and out of lockdown, business thrived. ‘‘So far we had around 7000 bookings.’’
But you don’t have to be in lockdown to enjoy this strange, enchanting experience. When different faces start popping up on the stream as others join from around the world, it’s like being invited into the heart of these families’ homes: their kitchens.
There’s a couple in a pristine, modern space drinking wine in Silicon Valley; a family in a busy farmhouse kitchen in Toronto; a trio of seniors leaning over their computer camera in Virginia – they’re celebrating a birthday; a solo woman in Denver who has taken so many of the Nonna’s classes Elisabetta jokes that she works with them now.
The class is much larger than I expected, but rather than feeling intimidated as I might have in person, being online gives me a little distance to feel less self-conscious.
Elisabetta’s cheery welcome and announcement that we’re all part of the Palombara Sabina family now, just adds to the sense of upbeat cosiness. It really is like all our kitchens are one big kitchen. Then the cooking begins.
Since the pandemic, there have probably been more words written about the healing powers of cooking than ever before, but it bears repeating – cooking really is just so great. As someone who suffers from anxiety, methodically following a new recipe, making something you thought was difficult, but turns out to be simple, and that you later get to eat, might be my personal cure-all.
That goes double when you’re making something carb-loaded and delicious like pasta, and triple when the whole event is custom-made to trigger nostalgic memories of cooking with your real-life Nana.
To make the pasta dough, Nonna Anna tells us to put the flour straight onto the counter in a pile.
Then Elisabetta asks: ‘‘What is the most Italian gesture you can make?’’
I lift my hand to the iPad camera, like I’m about to pluck something in front of my face with the tips of my fingers pressed together, and drop my hand back and forth (try it, you’ll see what I mean).
‘‘Yes, Kylie. That’s the one. You get Nonna’s Kiss!’’ she cries, as she and Nonna Anna start making the same gesture. Nonna Anna darts out from behind her counter and plants a masked smacker on the screen. ‘‘You’re really part of the family now!’’
It’s a sweet, welcoming moment. It’s also the exact hand shape you need to make to create a well in the flour for the eggs.
As we knead the dough, Nonna Anna gives us tips about pressure, duration of kneading and resting and consistency, all the tricks and tips she’s learned from generations of Nonna’s before her, translated by Elisabetta.
‘‘Nonna says: Caress the noodle like you caress your wife!’’ she says.
Compared to the Nonna’s dough, mine is a sticky, chunky lump, my technique less Italian caress than Swedish massage... but, I realise with delight, it really doesn’t matter.
I don’t have to get this right for anyone but me. I’m not in a class where everyone can see I can’t knead a silky smooth dough to save my life. There’s no-one to compare my technique to, except the Nonna, and she’s been doing this for 70 years or more.
If I can make this mess even vaguely edible compared to hers, I’ll still be winning.
It’s something of a revelation. This class might be the most relaxed and upbeat I’ve ever been about getting something wrong in my entire, anxious life.
While the dough rests, we make the filling, and put the water on to boil. Then we’re rolling the dough, which again... a bit of a mess, but who cares, it appears to be working.
Then there’s a bit of a faff with folding the filling into the fresh pasta that I just made with my own two hands... ed ecco qua I’ve made ravioli.
Me. Does It Come In A Can Girl. I made these little parcels of spinach-y, ricotta-y and nutmeg-y flavour.
I feel like the heavens have just opened above and a little white dove has descended, a sprig of fresh basil in her glittering beak... as God as my witness, I will never buy dried pasta again!
OK, so, yes, my ravioli looks like the Frankenstein’s Monster version, massive and warped, but they are recognisably based on the idea of ravioli... sort of. Anyway, who cares what they look like when they’re smothered in the world’s most delicious, and deliciously simple sauce – melted butter with fresh sage, my new absolute favourite flavour combo.
As the class winds down, we tuck into our creations together, share our thoughts about the recipe and what we learned, and eventually, say farewell. I feel far closer to Nonna Anna and Elisabetta than I’d imagined it possible to feel about to anyone on the other end of a Zoom call.
No wonder someone living alone, like our classmate in Denver, would sign up for every class. It just feels good to hang out with these effusive, upbeat folks and make food.
I’m certain I’ll take another class with them. What’s not to love about a short, Covid-safe holiday in Italy, complete with unexpected personal insight, and the therapeutic application of complex carbs?