Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Making Fresh Pasta in Tuscany

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This article first appeared in the October 2012 issue
 of the award-winning subscription travel newsletter Dream of Italy

By Walter Sanders

Flour and egg transformed into gossamer sheets of fresh pasta.

Flour and egg transformed into gossamer sheets of fresh pasta.

While staying at Villa Pipistrelli just south of Siena, our group visited nearby Stigliano. We were on a mission: to learn how make fresh pasta from scratch. Our teachers were two older women from the village. They were beautiful, gracious and patient. Pasta-making rookies began combining ingredients, and our enthusiasm was evident despite beaten eggs leaking from collapsed flour walls.

With the help of our lovely mentors, everyone finished their dough and formed it into a ball. All the balls were kneaded together, then rolled flat, cut, stuffed, trimmed and transformed into ravioli.

The site was La Bottega di Stigliano, a combination retail shop—specializing in locally produced agricultural products—and a restaurant. The building was a former casa del popolo, a people’s house where in olden times farm workers would meet to sell products. The casa also served as a social center. It was, in a sense, a one-stop shop where people could fill their baskets with food and make social connections. [Read more…]

Barilla Shares the Table

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Anyone who has spent time in Italy knows that meals are about so much more than the food. Meals are daily opportunities for fellowship between family and friends. To promote that life enhancement here in the U.S., Barilla has launched “Share the Table,” the Barilla Family Dinnertime Project.

By registering on the site and making the promise to improve the time you spend with your family around the table and join the Share the Table community, you’ll receive a “Guide to Making Family Dinnertime More Meaningful” with exclusive recipes from Chef Mario Batali, as well as access to online information and support.

For each person who promises to “Share the Table,” Barilla will donate $1 to Meals on Wheels Association of America–up to $150,000–to support senior nutrition programs serving more than one million meals per day.