Cook like a Roman {Pasta Making in a Palazzo}

I like to cook. While I may sometime grumble about the Sisyphean task of feeding my family every night in truth I like the daily chore. I like the planning and the shopping. I enjoy the chopping and baking. I love presenting my labor on the pretty plates that I have collected (and Mark has hauled across oceans) in Morocco and Positano and Zimbabwe using the silver from grandmothers chest. But here is a little secret. I know I live in Rome and I buy pretty much only locally sourced and produced products, I rarely cook Italian food.  There are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly my mother is a francophile, which meant more gratin than pasta on our family table growing up. My first cookbooks were Julia Child and Laurie Colwin. I really learned how to cook in Niamey where ingredients were shipped in from Paris weekly. So my basics are more French and American home cooking than Italian. Add to that Mark and Noah often have a plate of pasta for lunch at work and school so they rarely wanted another one for dinner. Now I know how to cook pasta. I just don't do it all that often. But practice makes perfect so when Walks of Italy invited me to a pasta making class in a beautiful palazzo of course I said yes. 

The evening started with some prosecco and warm from the oven snacks before we got started measuring, kneading and rolling under the instruction of Chef David. We learned what kind of flour to use to make a simple water and flour pasta and how to know when the dough is ready to roll out and when it is ready to rest.  Chef David also gave us all a quick lesson in knife skills as we each tried our hand at chopping ingredients for the pasta sauce. Tender fresh zucchini flowers, sausage, garlic and aromatic saffron melded together to create an incredible sauce that was perfect for the hand shaped pasta that we had just made.

A few glasses of wine around the stove, biscotti dunked into a boozy chocolate mix and lots of laughter with friends old and new are the recipe for an unforgettable and delicious experience. 

This class is fun if you live in Rome and want to learn a few new cooking tricks or for visitors who want a behind the scenes look at how some of the delicious food you have been eating on your trip is made. Contact Walks of Italy for more information.