Pasta: A Family Affair

I am inviting you all to St. John's on Sheep Trail Road this Saturday, Dec. 3, for the bazaar. We finished the pasta last Sunday and it is packaged and ready to go. Doors open at noon.

The Italians have been baking bread and cookies. Later this week they will prepare the chicken noodle soup, chili and beef stew for the bazaar lunch. You can get a serving of soup, chili or stew, beverage, homemade pie, cake or cheesecake and all the homemade bread and butter you can eat for $6.00. You can feed your entire family--and please do--pasta at St. John's is a family affair.

Food, namely pasta, lured me out to St. John's--I wanted to learn how to make homemade pasta but it is the sense of community and family that draws me back each year. As soon as we walk in the door Annzie is there to greet us. We are embraced and she whispers, "thank you for coming, it's a bigga job". I am pulled aside and presented with a loaf of bread fresh from Annzie's kitchen. There are more hugs and good wishes as I don my apron. In between batches of dough I catch up with folks I only see here, once a year. As the work flows and eggs and flour are turned into pasta, so does the conversation--friendships are made and connections are forged.

This is my pasta family.

Annzie and me.

This is Marion, Annzie's son with Velia, they are cousins.

Howard and Velia, they are just no fun at all!

This is Johnny, Velia's son.

Johnny has two sons, Matt and...

Ben, who are of course Velia's grandsons.

Matt brought his girlfriend, Misty. Rosemary, on the right, has her back to the camera she kneaded just about every batch of dough. Her daughter, Christine, is the back on the left.

Here is Ben with Terrie, Rosemary's other daughter.

This is Ashley, Terrie's daughter and Rosemary's granddaughter. Ashley designed and welded the racks pictured here...

and here, photographed with Ashley's friend, Trina.

Here is a great shot of the racks and Mike, a new member of the pasta family.

Mike is married to Lisa, on the right, whose daughter is Rosemary's niece. (I know, this is starting to sound like a Southern Gothic novel but it's not.)

The tall lady next to Annzie is Lynn.

She is married to Paul, pictured here. They have three sons that have helped make pasta for the past eight years. I have watched their youngest, Nate, grow from a little boy into a young man.

This photo was taken in 2004 when I first met Nate. (My apologies to these young men, they were at St. John's again this year kneading and rolling pasta but I was chained to the food processor in the kitchen and did not get any photos before they left.)

This is Lynn's and Paul's eldest son, Kyle.

In this photo also taken in 2004, Nick, the second son, is rolling pasta with his father. You can see Kyle in the background. Nick is in Germany serving in the military and so was excused from pasta duty this year.

Christine, Rosemary's daughter is on the left. She is joined by my two friends, Kath, in the center, and Larinda, on the right. Christine and Kath go way back, they met years ago volunteering for another totally unrelated service organization.

Though not related, Kath is my sister/friend. We traveled through Italy together--eating, hiking, laughing and painting. Larinda is my guru, she teaches yoga in town. She is a dear friend yet young enough to be my daughter. Oh yeah, the cute guy in the middle is my husband.

We look forward each year to pasta days--part boot camp, part family reunion. By rough estimate, I processed over 225 pounds of flour into pasta dough this year and RT cracked over 1,800 eggs. It took three long days and many hands but this year we made over 400 pounds of pasta. Annzie's right--it is a "bigga" job.