Cooking Classes: Pasta

Pasta

Pasta is made from the most simple ingredients--flour and eggs. Join me Monday evening, Nov. 7, from 7 - 9 pm. when we resume cooking classes. I will show you how to transform these two ingredients into the most delectable noodles you have ever eaten! Seriously, if you have never experienced freshly made pasta with a simple sauce you are in for the treat of a lifetime.



We will start with fettuccini, a simple flat pasta delicious with all kinds of sauces or in soups. Fettuccini can be made with a pasta cutter or a rolling pin and knife.

We will also make capellini, angel hair pasta, a very thin delicate pasta that allows the sauces to really take center stage.

Out in the middle of a natural forest deep in the Piedmonte region of Italy, miles and miles away from nowhere, I saw an open trattoria. We only stopped for a drink but they were just starting the lunch service and it only took me one whiff to know where I was having lunch. I was served a gorgeous wild mushroom sauce served on freshly made cappellini! I can still taste the mushrooms and feel the "bite" of that pasta under my teeth--fantastic!

We will also make some ravioli, a simple filled pasta, a little pocket full of heaven.

This class is full of hands on activities because "many hands make pasta easy." If you love pasta and have never made it from scratch please join me. You will be surprised at how easy it is and how much better fresh pasta can be. Bring an apron and your appetite.

To reserve your place in class please email me at: jasabinart@aol.com.
Monday, Nov. 7, 7-9 pm.
Meridian Center
Blackfoot
$15 per person

This Moment...in Italia

The richest moments of life are found when fully engaged in something, lost in the wonder and beauty of an event. Fully present, senses piqued--inundated with sights and scents and sounds--feeling at once apart from and a part of everything! Unable to take you to Italy with me I offer these entries for your exploration.

Benvenuto--welcome to La Traversina, an agriturismo in the heart of Piedmonte.

Our first days were spent at La Traversina, set in the woods high above a tiny village. The house has been in the same family since 1714. Three foot thick walls, stone floors, wooden doors, shuttered windows thick with ivy, draped in lace the house offers refuge, breathes tranquility.

Trees and arbors are hung with candles, an open invitation to linger in the moonlight. Long after the candles have gone out pots of white impatiens hold the light continuing the dreamy scene.

Through the open door, up green marble steps, sloped and worn soft by three hundred years of footsteps, we are on the left.

The "Blue Room", our sanctuary. We wake early to birds and sunlight. Breakfast with people from the world over, share maps, restaurant suggestions and itineraries, then head out to explore the surrounding country. We spoil ourselves with massive lunches, long walks, deep discussions and return to La Traversina for un buon pisolino--a little nap.

The cares of the world, everyday worries and stress from our busy season lift with every exhalation, drift towards the open window, slip through the lace curtain and disappear.


We regroup and refresh in the courtyard with wine and beer, fruit and cookies. RT reads and thinks in the quiet and I move about the farm painting and sketching. We are healing, repairing, returning to our best selves.

Bindweed in Italia!

We have just returned from an all too brief holiday in Italy. I have missed blogging and communicating with you all but we wanted to step out of our everyday lives and really sink into the Italian Experience..."o dio"...did we ever! I have a zillion photos, okay actually not quite 700, and so much to share which I will do as my English language skills return and the jet lag subsides.
We encountered warm beautiful people, traversed incredible country and shared amazing meals. We stayed on a farm in the "Piedmonte", did yoga at sunset with a young man from Nepal, wandered for days in Venice eating in cafes along the canals, drinking in the architecture, art and culture. We hiked through vineyards and olive groves high above the sea, swam in the turquoise waters of the Italian Riviera and stood before DaVinci's "Last Supper". We ate regional cuisine from Piedmonte, Sardinia, Venice, Sicily and Milan. I watched, tasted and consulted with culinary magicians and cannot wait to share recipes, philosophies and techniques.

But..the last of the tomatoes must be harvest and prepared for winter, the peaches are waiting to be turned into jams and chutneys AND we are busy preparing for 30,000 tulip bulbs arriving any day now that must be planted for next spring...so for now, I send you a "Buon giorno".