the calling

it started out with a call from nonnie earlier this week. next thing i knew i found myself heading out in the car, driving her on a quick errand. this sort of thing is not unusual. but on this trip, sort of out of nowhere, i mentioned, as we drove down the street, that i had been thinking a lot lately of aunt mary's raviolis. aunt mary was nonnie's sister and well, she made really, really good spinach raviolis. from scratch! i think everyone in my family has incredible memories of these little, perfectly square, hand-cut, spinach filled raviolis, eating them together huddled around nonnie's breakfast nook table with either a bowl of chicken broth or with lots of melted butter and parmesean cheese... mmmm... so anyway, as i was saying, i mentioned to my grandmother that i had been thinking about them lately and was wondering if maybe we could plan a day to try to make a batch up ourselves? i suddenly had the desire to know how. and i was hoping that my grandmother could teach me. well without hesitation nonnie suggested that as soon as she was finished with her errand that we head back to her house and get started on the dough. and that is how it came to be that i had my first lesson in making raviolis... 

starting with the basics. 

nonnie chopping the spinach super fine.

our dough, ready to be rolled with my great-grandmother's rolling pin.

me, rolling out the dough

nonnie giving me the first how-to demo.

lining up the filling

cutting, and trying to keep them small.

finito!

passing it on: trying out my new skills at home later in the week while at the same time sharing what i had learned with margaret — who was off and running with her own batch in no time. (at home i experimented with the same dough and a pumpkin filling, mainly to use up a csa squash, but next time it will be back to the spinach).