And you thought pasta came from a box
For Christmas, my dad gave me a pasta machine. He chose this gift after hearing me lament “If it didn’t cost so much I’d eat fresh pasta all the time”. Tonight I finally tried it out. Things looked bad early on as I got the dough mixture horribly wrong. For a while it looked like I wouldn’t be making much besides a large mess (As I type this I’ve discovered yet another enclave of flour clinging to my arm for dear life). I eventually got it sorted, and embarked on the long ritual of cranking dough through the rollers.
My noodles turned out surprisingly well. The taste was a little off (see earlier comments about screwing up the dough mixture) but the fact that the end result was actually recognizable as pasta has me keen to try again.
I ate my first batch in a tasty (and easy) chicken pesto recipe I learned from my fellow research-group student Dave. He was kind enough to have me over for dinner, gaming and cognitive science debates on Friday night.
We played Settlers of Catan, and with my host’s help I acquitted myself rather well, managing to get into a 3-way time for first place a few turns before the end of the game (which a more experienced player managed to clinch).
settlers of catan and fresh pasta… i’m so jealous.
so what kind of pasta maker is it? just the stainless-steel roller set which makes a lump into a long flat thing, folded several times, then cut into ribbons? man, that stuff is so good.
just egg, flour, oil. mix and roll.
talk about rock and roll.
Rollers with variable thickness settings. Gizmo that slices the flat dough. Yeah, that about sums it up.
Settlers is pretty fun. You’ve played I take it?
Ian, you’re probably the very last person on the planet to play it. Tch.
No, Jamie, that would be me. Seeing as how I haven’t yet
Aw. You n me will have to have a game at some point.
sweet. Sounds good to me
Who telephones at 20 after 2 in the morning?
sorry. the phone just rang. Dammit, if the phone’s ringing this time of night, somebody better have died or given birth, that’s all I have to say. Preferably the latter.
It wasn’t me. I think I actually went to bed by then last night.
Someone phoned me at 10 am. Woke me right up. I was thinking similar dark thoughts.
(I didn’t answer. When I’ve just woken I’m waaaay too stunned to be useful to the person on the other end. They can leave a message if they really want to talk to me).