Hungry and Thursday – Pasta con Fulvio

The Scary One’s been laid low so I had to make my own meal!

Thank goodness then I’ve got Catherine Fulvio to call on.

At her cookery school up the road in Ballyknocken in Co. Wicklow https://ballyknocken.ie/catherine-fulvios-cookery-school-ballyknocken-house-cookery-school-accommodation-wicklow-ireland/.

With Italian specialists Top Flight www.topflight.ie.

Food is integral to Italian life with Catherine sharing with us tales of her Sicilian mother-in-law rustling up beautiful dishes when she visited.

From what was lying around the kitchen.

There was a pasta-making machine lying around our table top… the only thing though was we’d have to make the pasta.

Or rather Laura, an Italian on our table, would.

She did, of course, put me to work on the sticky stuff which is kneeding the dough and the egg.

The expert gets it into a nice ball, the amateur (ie. me) wears it on their fingers like a glove.

And that’s even before you learn how to use the pasta-making machine.

Now this one’s really got my brain scrambled (or should that be mangled). And the cup after cup of Prosecco wasn’t helping.

You’ve got to thread the strips through the machine which is kind of difficult when you’re turning the handle in the wrong direction.

And then change the settings on the side to make it thinner.

I could just hear Bruce Forsyth or Larry Grayson guffawing at my efforts (ask your parents).

Maybe I’d be better at the oven-baked Pancella & red pepper Risotto… the only trouble was that I was chopping my celery stalks too thick.

And Laura had to take over the garlic cloves because I was going too slowly.

The open Ravioli with Chicken Mushroom Sauce would have been a mush without Kevin’s help.

But I did manage to mix the Amaretto Truffle Torte in its bowl and lick the spatula and the Amaretto.

Time then to make my excuses and leave…

But not before giving you a sample of what Top Flight has to offer in its Italy brochure.

And in a nod to Catherine and the Sicilians… why not from the Top Flight brochure Taormina.

They are billing Delicious Sicily & Cooking Class as an excursion.

You can stay at the Hotel Ariston. Seven nights B&B two pps, flying from Dublin. From €999 to €1299. Visit http://www.topflight.ie.

You’ll be near the centre of the old town, ten minutes’ walk to the cable car for the beach (an uphill walk from the resort centre) next to the bus terminal.

And here’s a Dad joke to lighten your day…

Patient, Doctor, I feel like an Italian island.

Doctor: ‘Don’t be Sicily.’