A cooking lesson with Lidia

This morning the snow was falling so thickly that Shadow-dog and I couldn't see downtown across the river from Strathearn Park. He had to galumph through the snow, his short legs barely making it over the berms along the edge of the bikepath. By the time we arrived at my dear Italian friend Lidia's, he was half black and half white, but she welcomed us in with a warmth that melted the snow in a hurry.

"Today you come for gnocchi?" she asked. I told her that I couldn't stay for lunch because I had a physio appointment to attend. That did not make her happy.

"I cook potato, we make gnocchi." She went to her fridge and brought out a large baking potato, skin on, that she had boiled yesterday, and proceeded to give me the gnocchi-making lesson I had jokingly suggested during my visit last week. After peeling the potato, she sliced it into her Italian potato grater, a piece of stainless steel sieve-shaped equipment that fits over a bowl, with a crank and an augur-like piece that pushes the finely-shredded potato through the bottom. I wasn't very good at operating the thing -- it kept going cockeyed -- so she took over and had the job done in two minutes (after I had been trying for five). 

"Two potatoes, two eggs. One potato, one egg," she said, mixing the one egg with one tablespoon of olive oil and beating it in a small bowl. She poured it onto the grated potato, and threw in a few handsful of flour.

"Lidia! You cook like my grandma," I teased. "You don't measure. How am I supposed to follow your recipe when my hands are bigger than yours?" 

She laughed and shrugged. "You tell by how it feel, not too hard, not too soff." When she had kneaded everything into a nice dough, she started to roll it into thin ropes, and chop it into small pieces that she tossed into a bit more flour. 

Then, the magic. 

She took a fork and rolled a piece of the dough on its tines with one finger, and voila! A beautiful little gnoccha. I laughed out loud! So that's why those little potato dumplings are so pretty! I got my own fork and we bent over the task together, me grinning like the Cheshire cat, exclaiming over the process. Doesn't take much to delight me! Hers had nice plump shapes, but mine looked like they were underfed.

By the time I had to leave, we had enough gnocchi for my family's supper. Of course Lidia sent it home with me, along with a jar of her wonderful homemade tomato sauce (with real Italian basil, grown by Ralph last summer) and instructions on how to put it all together. I told her she should be the star of "Cooking with Lidia" on TV, and she waved me off, saying I should go and get my own potato/tomato grater at the Italian Centre.

How I love my tiny Italian mamma!

I can't wait to eat supper tonight!

The Noodlers

In a cold, northern city, a small tribe of Noodlers gathers on a dusky afternoon to encourage one another in a difficult and time consuming task. They bring the necessaries: bags of white flour, 15 dozen eggs, amazing muscular strength in hand, arm and shoulder, and a determination to create the ultimate in slow food... homemade egg noodles...

This one needs a lot more kneading to make it smooth and pretty...

The Noodlers make enough batches of smooth, hard yellow noodle dough to fill five or six icecream pails. They disperse to nurse their aching hands through the night, vowing that this is the last time they'll fulfill this crazy task.

The following day, the intrepid band regathers to complete their mission: the rolling and cutting of the noodles.

The large lumps of dough are formed into small, flat pieces 

that go through rollers to make larger flat pieces.

The larger pieces are then cranked through again to make long sheets

that go through several hands, sometimes flying through the air... 

to drying places throughout the house...

All of which is done in shifts... as some sheet noodles dry, 

some dough is just being cut and flattened for rolling, and

other sheets are cut into thin, chicken noodle soup noodles...

...put into pans... and run upstairs to a

highly specialized drying platform.

The same process occurs for the thick, comfort food noodles...

The Noodlers are an extremely shy people... 

I had to hide to catch this runner/spreader in action...

To prevent them from sticking together in clumps,

the Noodler below is airing the drying noodles...

which will rest on their drying beds for a day or two,

before being packed into containers and stored in cupboards.

After about nine hours (not including the drying and getting the noodles into ice cream pails), the Noodlers are pleased with their work. The noodles will be enjoyed in soups and cooked in the traditional Russian-German style (with potatoes and butter fried croutons) until they're all gone... Perhaps by then the Noodlers will have forgotten their sore hands and only remember the fun, camaraderie, and flying noodles that brought them together for two days in January, 2012.

P.S. If you want to make your own slow food egg noodles, take a dozen eggs and work in about one kilo of white flour (4-5 cups; depending on the size of your eggs, it might take more or less). We used 15 kilos of flour for 15 dozen eggs. Make a really firm (read knuckle-busting) dough, and roll out thin before cutting (Grandma did it by hand, but there are pasta machines like ours still available for about $60 if you want to do it that way). Cook noodles in salted water or soup broth. Yummmmy!