Food, Glorious Food, Part 1

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta”

~Federico Fellini

One of the highlights of our trip to Italy was attending  a cooking class at Ristorante Il Ritrovo .  Chef  Salvatore was a wonderful, engaging teacher and just the epitome of an Italian chef.  Chef Salvatore views cooking as his art and he excels at his art!

Our first task was to make pasta.  After combining the ingredients, we kneaded the semolina dough.

Gina mixing egg in the center of the dough

Next step:  putting the dough through the pasta press to make a uniform sheet.

Tina working the pasta press under close supervision

We made flat pasta as well as ravioli.  For the ravioli filling, we made a luscious mixture of 5 different cheeses.

Armed with a pastry bag loaded with cheese filling, I placed precisely spaced dollops onto the pasta sheet

After the pasta, it was time to whip up a tomato sauce.  We created a wonderful Pomodoro sauce.

Crushing the tomatoes in the pomodoro sauce

The key to this sauce, as with so much of the cooking in Italy, is in the freshness and quality of the ingredients.  Chef Salvatore emphasized this point to us repeatedly:  use the best ingredients you can.  Our sauce was so delicious, I thought I’d share the recipe!  I can imagine using cherry tomatoes from the garden this summer as the basis for this sauce.  Mmmmm ~

Pomodoro Sauce

Ingredients:

Cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 small clove garlic, finely minced
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, dry and finely chopped
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Extra Virgin olive oil, best you can find and fruity (frutti)
Starchy water from cooked pasta
Coarse salt
Freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano
Fettucine or other long, flat pasta

Directions:

• In a cool saute pan, combine 3-4 T olive oil and garlic then heat to medium.  Stir occasionally, taking care that the garlic doesn’t brown as the pan heats up.
• When you begin to smell the garlic and hear it sizzle a bit, stir in crushed red pepper and a handful of parsley.
• Add tomatoes and let them cook for a few minutes.  As the tomatoes begin to soften, crush them with a fork.  Continue crushing tomatoes as the mixture cooks until they no longer look like tomatoes.
• Add a ladleful or two of starchy water to the tomato mixture and stir until blended.
• Add salt to taste
• The pomodoro sauce won’t take more than 10 minutes to prepare and shouldn’t be cooked much longer.
• If necessary, remove the sauce from the heat while you wait for the pasta to cook.
• Once pasta is cooked to al dente (firm to the bite) stage, drain, and add pasta to the saute pan with the sauce.
• The pasta will continue to cook so it is important not to overcook the pasta in the water.
• Serve immediately, topping with fresh parsley and garnish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and olive oil.

Click here for printable recipe

Inhaling the wonderful aroma of our handiwork

After all of our hard work, it was time to sit down to an amazing meal in Il Ritrovo’s dining room overlooking the Mediterranean.  We enjoyed roasted vegetables, our pasta dishes and a chocolate torta for dessert.

Delizioso!

What an incredible experience!  The food that we prepared was simple but delectable.  With  minimal ingredients you could really taste the freshness as the flavors exploded in your mouth with each bite.  As an interior designer, one of the most important aspects of any of my projects is editing a space.  A few well placed, hand chosen pieces make the design pop.  In Italian cooking and interior design the same principle applies:  it doesn’t have to be complicated to be beautiful ~ or delicious!

Toasting ourselves with Prosecco!

Life is too short, and I’m Italian:  I’d much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size 0

~Sophia Bush

xo,

Pamela

Positively Positano

“Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are
there and becomes beckoningly real after you are gone”

~John Steinbeck

Ahhhh~ am I in heaven?

I feel as though I  am just now waking from the dream that was my trip to Positano, Italy.  It was, in a word, amazing.  It was my first visit to this breathtaking region and Positano did not disappoint.

Getting to Positano involved a drive on mountain roads replete with hairpin turns.  Yet with each curve,  a new breathtaking vista came into view.  Driving here is not for the beginner or the faint of heart!

Located along the Amalfi Coast, Positano’s dramatically steep seaside cliffs and stunning views greet you as you arrive.  The town of Positano is tucked into the mountains and presents  a dramatic vertical panorama of colors; houses in pastel pinks and yellows, the sunbathed shades of ivory limestone and of course the incredible blue of the sea. With this unique geography, steps  nearly replace roads in Positano–with over 400 from the beach to our villa!

Walking to this boat from our villa involved descending 446 stone steps

Positano is full of charm and was the perfect backdrop for a vacation with my gal pals Tina and Gina.  And yes, during the trip I changed my name to Pina–it seemed only fitting!

Gina and Tina

More inspiration and photos to come!

Coming soon, the flavors of Positano

xo,

Pamela