I Don't Own A Good Knife, Do You?

When Joy Ramirez of Joy of Cooking and Claudia Young from cook, eat, FRET sent me an email detailing their first Cucina Cooking Schoolhouse, I immediately signed up. Dinner with a fabulous menu and wine for $60? Plus, I'll learn how to make homemade pasta with decadent sauces? It was a no brainer.

The last email detailed the address and said to bring your favorite knife and your apron.

Uh oh.

I don't own an apron. And my knives. I am so ashamed of my knives. I don't even know if I can say it...

They're those (hangs head) orange handled Rachel Ray ones. Those are my "good knives."

I headed out into the rainy dark night to Brentwood, clear on the other side of town, without an apron or a knife. How deep is my knife shame?

Pretending to be knifeless and apronless, I borrowed what I needed and decked myself out in a little, red candy stripe apron. I am ready to get Italian.

We learned about Italian OO flour, how to make a well, how to mix (Claudia's a two finger girl, while Joy uses a fork), and how (LONG) to knead. I triple suck at kneading. It's damn hard. Friends (aka suckers!) will be invited over to help with kneading, when I make my first batch. Ten minutes of hard, arm cardio is what kneading is. And frankly, I can't hang.

After about an hour of pasta making, Claudia returns from outside with freshly grilled bruschetta. We pour olive oil on and devour!

We start rolling the dough through the machines making long, flat pallettes that will either become the tortellini or the fettucine. The tortellini are stuffed with a sweet potato mix that would rock your world. Full of fresh parmesean, prosciutto and grated nutmeg. We stuff and fold our squares, hold between fingers and flip the pointy edge down, making pretty, little tortellini. The huge garlic cloves are sauteed in olive oil until sweet. The kitchen aroma is intoxicating!

At the end of the evening, we have made...

Sweet Potato Stuffed Tortellini with Butter and Sage
Bucatini all'Amatriciana
Fettuccine with Oyster Mushrooms, Sweet Garlic and Arugula

We al sit around a huge table full of pastas and interesting characters. Chris cures his own meats and has a phenomenal knife collection (he let me hold them sensing the fact that I was knife stupid), the Italian Stallion that is a master at kneading, his wife, the beautiful Shaman that is on her way to India. Everyone was so interesting and social. It was like hanging out and cooking with old friends. What a lovely evening!

Next month, they are hosting a Cookie Class complete with biscotti. I don't know if I can convince my girl that I need to learn how to bake cookies, but you can bet I'm going to try!