As you can see, dinner was good. Really good. Fresh pasta, eggy and rich. Summer peas from the farmers market. Grated cheese from Italy. You don’t see the bottle of wine, but it was good too.
Suzi and I made the pasta. We love that task and enjoy using the pasta machine, which requires teamwork. We become a mini-pasta factory, the dough whirling through the rollers. It’s the drying process that sometimes has hindered us. We have one of those wooden drying racks with pieces that seem to always get lost. Can wooden dowels actually hide? And, of course, the dowels warp so getting everything to fit requires about ten hands. Suzi and I have, at most, four.
I looked around. “What if,” I said, “we used the chair backs.” Suzi smiled. Here’s the result.
But, there is a catch. While drying, how to you keep critters or insects from hopping around on that pasta?
Tha't's Winnie. She is our attack cat, a proven mouser. No, she is not eating or licking the pasta in this picture, but she is paying close attention. As a reward, we did offer her some of the wine. She deferred and reverted to a little bowl of warm milk. And, of course, no pasta or peas. I think she had a good time. She keeps eying the pasta machine on the shelf.