Gavadallies!

Flour, ricotta, eggs and water. Whisk the wet. Add the dry. Squish and squeeze. Knead, knead, knead. Cover with a damp dish towel and leave. Give it time to rise like a soft beige sun...  

While I work, I think of her, the recipe writer. 

Flour the board. Flour the pin. Press. Roll. Roll. Press. Roll. Roll. Slice it into one inch squares. Pinch it into tiny pockets, doll house baguettes, purses and scrolls. Lay them in lines on crinkly parchment paper. Then place the sheet of pasta into the ol' freezer.

Concetta, Connie, Ma, Nana, -she made her cookies with Crisco, red raisins and molasses, her chicken soup with lard and her "gavadallies" with 

• 5 pounds of all purpose flour 
• 6 eggs
• 1 ¼ pounds of ricotta cheese
• 1 ½ cups of warm water
• a pinch of salt

Fill your biggest pasta pot with tap water, a pinch a' salt and all the love of a wistful granddaughter. Wait for a rolling boil, then place the frozen gavadillies in. Careful! You don't want to splash your skin! Now, wait until they float like little row boats on the storming sea. Then, with a long wooden spoon, retrieve, retrieve, retrieve!  

I didn't boil the first two batches long enough. They are stiff and my tomato sauce tastes tangy. I sauté garlic, rosemary and olive oil and add it in. This helps a little. I fill my belly with taste test bites before giving up and falling into bed.

The next day, Mom helps me put the pasta into the oven. Low heat. Let them simmer and soften. “The sauce tastes fine.” She says and I decide to believe her. Hours later, I take a bite. It's not bad. They aren't perfect and would be better with Nana's marinara sauce and meatballs. They would be better in her basement with the red and white plastic poinsettia table cloths, her Christmas tree with the silver tinsel and her at the head of the table. They would be right if they were made by her, my beautiful Italian grandmother -with her puff of white curled hair, her big brown eyes, a bottle of Bud at her side and that voice, which was like Parmesan cheese (tough, coarse, rich) sprinkled over a Boston accent, which stretched her sentences like the dough in her mixing bowls. 

Making Nana's gavadallies is like prayer, like the deepest and happiest of meditations, like singing psalms and Christmas songs. 

Flour, ricotta, eggs and water. 
Whisk the wet. Add the dry. 
Squish and squeeze. 
Knead, knead, knead! 


It can't bring her back to the table, but it certainly helps bring me back to hers.