By Liam starts new daycare in four weeks and he has been preparing. He asks me questions about it in the way he asks questions about new things: carefully, to close the gaps. Will Marco be there? (No, different school.) Will the teachers know his name? (Yes, I gave it to them.) Will there be outside time? (Yes, every day.) He takes the answers and files them. He is building the picture.
I visited Meghan and Aidan on Saturday. Aidan is sixteen months now, walking and talking and running the same kind of energy-maximizing program that Liam ran at that age. He and Nora looked at each other from their respective laps with the mutual assessment of two people being introduced. Meghan told me she and Cormac are thinking about buying a house too. "We've been looking in Quincy," she said, and I laughed and she said "what?" and I said "we have too" and she said "which street" and I said "the one with the yellow cape" and she said "not us" and we both felt the specific relief of friends who want the same thing but not the same house.
Late-August cooking: eggplant parmesan on Sunday, the kind that takes three hours and is worth every one of them. Roasted eggplant, hand-crushed San Marzanos, the good mozzarella. I made it with Nora in the bouncer on the kitchen floor and narrated as I always do. She watched the whole process with eyes that are following things more reliably now. She'll be in the kitchen with me eventually. Right now she watches. I'll take the watching.
The eggplant parmesan was the centerpiece, but it’s the kind of cooking that puts you in a particular mood—unhurried, layered, committed to the process. Homemade pasta belongs to the same Sunday. It’s the recipe I reach for when I want the kitchen to feel like something is being built slowly and on purpose, the kind of project you can narrate to a baby in a bouncer who is watching everything and filing it all away. If Nora is going to grow up knowing what real cooking looks and sounds like, this is a good place to start.
Homemade Pasta
Prep Time: 45 min | Cook Time: 5 min | Total Time: 1 hr (plus 30 min rest) | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1–2 tablespoons water, as needed
Instructions
- Make the well. Mound the flour on a clean work surface and create a wide well in the center. Crack the eggs into the well, add the olive oil and salt.
- Incorporate the dough. Using a fork, beat the eggs gently and begin drawing flour in from the inner wall of the well, working outward gradually until a shaggy dough forms. If the dough seems too dry, add water one teaspoon at a time.
- Knead. Turn the dough out and knead with the heel of your hand for 8–10 minutes, until smooth, elastic, and slightly tacky. It should spring back slowly when pressed.
- Rest. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. This relaxes the gluten and makes rolling much easier.
- Roll and cut. Divide the dough into four portions. Working one at a time and keeping the rest covered, roll each piece on a lightly floured surface to your desired thickness—about 1/16 inch for tagliatelle or fettuccine. Fold loosely and cut into strips, then unfurl and dust with flour to prevent sticking.
- Cook. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a rolling boil. Add the fresh pasta and cook for 2–4 minutes, tasting frequently—fresh pasta cooks fast. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water, and toss immediately with your sauce of choice.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 280 | Protein: 10g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 46g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 310mg