Fresh Pasta Sunday: Either, Neither, Both and More

Fresh Pasta on Sunday

1Every Sunday, the Okafor family cooks dinner together. This week, Dad had a surprise. "Tonight we are making pasta from scratch," he said. Ada and her little brother, Chidi, looked at each other with wide eyes. They had only ever cooked dry pasta from a box.

2Dad poured a mound of flour onto the counter and pressed a deep well into the middle of it. "Ada, you can either crack the eggs or stir them into the flour," he said. Ada chose to crack the eggs, so Chidi stirred with a fork. At first, the dough was not only sticky but also lumpy. "Keep kneading," Dad said. "It will get smooth."

3After ten minutes of pushing and folding, the dough felt soft and stretchy. Dad wrapped it up so it could rest. Meanwhile, the family had to choose a shape. Chidi wanted long, flat noodles, and Ada wanted little bow ties. Mom said there was enough dough for both the noodles and the bow ties. Everyone agreed that this was a fair plan.

4Rolling the dough was harder than it looked. Ada's first sheet was neither thin nor even. It had a hole near one end and a thick lump near the other. Dad showed her how to roll from the middle toward the edges. Her next sheet was very thin, and she could almost see her fingers through it.

5Mom helped Chidi cut the long noodles while Ada pinched squares of dough into bow ties. Some bow ties were neat, and some were lopsided. Whether the shapes looked perfect or a little crooked, they all went into the pot of boiling water. In just a few minutes, the pasta floated to the top.

6At dinner, Grandma Ngozi tasted a bow tie and smiled. "Either you two have cooked pasta before, or you are fast learners," she said. Chidi laughed. "Neither Ada nor I had ever made it until today!" Ada was already thinking about what the family could cook from scratch next Sunday.