Last Thursday my cousin Andrea and I went to 'our' Nonna Luisa's house to learn how to make her famous lasagna. Technically Louisa isn't related to us, but I should point out that my cousin (who is 27) was devastated to find out only a few years ago that we aren't actually related to Luisa. She has been around our entire lives, at every family function, and we all assumed that in some capacity we were related. And we might as well be. To clarify, Luisa is actually the mother of our second cousin Serena's husband, Frank. Somehow I also find it hard to believe that she isn't some third grandmother that is blood related but the first clue should have been that she is Italian and we aren't...
Luisa is so full of life, and joy. She grew up in Northern Italy, and after meeting her husband and marrying him at 18 years old (!!!) she moved to Canada where she lived in Montreal, and eventually moved to Toronto to be closer to her son and his wife and kids. Luisa is a sweet woman who only wants to soak up all the goodness that life has to offer. She told us she has no time for people who don't bring joy into her life ("we are so lucky we can choose our friends"), and fair enough because she brings so much joy into the life of others. She is about 5 feet tall and a ball of energy-- I loved watching her zip around the kitchen as she checked on the ragout and sipped on her lemon water.
We shared a lot of stories but one of my favourites was when she told us that for years she put off having children until one day she came home from the doctor, worried she would never be able to conceive. When she told her husband why she was upset he just looked at her and said "You want a baby? You should-a just ask! I give-a you a baby!" Luisa talked a lot about her husband who, according to her was a perfect gentleman. So perfect that she had to stop talking about him too much to her friends because they stopped believing her. Every time she talked about her husband her face lit up and it was so nice to see how much happiness he brought her, even in her memories. We looked at old pictures, drank wine, drank champagne ("Its-a your birthday tomorrow! I don't have-a champagne but I have-a spumante!!"), ate our lasagna, bread, cheese, fruit, cookies (including crostata), tea, espresso, salad.... more cookies... And don't even try to say no thank-you to a Nonna, they won't let it happen. Prepare yourself that when you go over you eat and drink. This is not a place to go to when you're trying to diet.
Luisa was the most gracious host, answering all our questions and even putting up with our constant iPhone photography. She had music playing and cookies set out for us upon arrival. When we left, she held our coats up for us so that we could put them on. It was such a special day and I had so much fun. Luisa says we're lucky because we get to choose our friends, so we should choose people who make us happy. I know we don't get to choose our family but if I could I would still choose my own anyway. I'm so glad Andrea and I were able to share this special day with Luisa, it is a day I will never forget.
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| grating a lot of parmesan |
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| making ragout (butter, olive oil, beef, veal, pork, bacon, carrot, celery, garlic, onion) |
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| stir stir stir |
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| before adding tomatoes |
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| ohhh just tossing in a stick or two of melted butter... |
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| Mooch learns how to roll out fresh pasta dough |
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| Luisa shows us how to cut it before we put it through the press |
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After one round through the press. It goes through many times after.
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cooking the noodles 5 at a time
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The ragout is complete!
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| Building the layers. |
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Adding milk to the roux for our béchamel sauce
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| Yes those are pats of butter on top of the béchamel sauce... |
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time to eat!!
For those of you looking for a recipe... Luisa doesn't cook with one, and didn't have measurements to give us, except for the noodles: for every 100grams of flour you need one egg. If you're making spinach pasta replace one egg with a fistful of cooked spinach from which you've squeezed all the excess liquid. Drier pasta is easier to work with than wet pasta so don't add water unless you absolutely have to. Use a mixture of about 2 lbs beef with 1lb veal and 1 lb pork..and add some bacon to that as well. You can never have too much butter. Add nutmeg to your béchamel. Drink a lot of wine and spumante. Enjoy your meal with loved ones, and make sure you're always having fun.
Mangia!
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