I enjoy eating pasta as much as the next person, but it wasn’t until Aziz Ansari’s pasta obsession in “Master of None” that I realized how much I wanted to learn how to make it. The way Aziz is about food in general on that show speaks to me on a spiritual level.
After being married for eight years and together for 13, coming up with creative and thoughtful gifts for special occasions can be tough. That’s why we’ve leaned toward experience gifts lately: concerts, a weekend trip, tickets to a live event, etc. For our eighth wedding anniversary earlier this month, I did some Google-fu for pasta making classes in our area, and found the Lansing Pasta Company, founded by Nicholas Fila.
I reached out to Nick on Facebook about a class, and he told me he offers in-home lessons. He was very flexible with our schedule and I set up a surprise Sunday morning class at our house. When Nick arrived at our house, he brought us a bottle of wine for our anniversary, which was such a thoughtful touch. He also brought all of the ingredients we would need to make the pasta, as well as some pre-made pasta doughs so we could get right at it.
We learned how to make orecchiette by hand, as well as fettuccine, tortellino (I thought they looked like cute little bandannas) and ravioli. Nick provided us with a delicious cheese filling for the latter two pastas. In addition to the pasta shapes we made by hand, he also taught us how to use our pasta roller properly.
In the matter of a couple hours, we had a bunch of delicious fresh pasta! Nick brought us a homemade ragu and a pesto sauce to use with our pasta. After the lesson, we immediately boiled up the fettuccine for lunch and ate it with the ragu:
I can’t recommend taking a class from Nick enough. In addition to teaching us pasta making techniques, he also gave us great information about the different pastas, the history of the shapes, and more. He’s very passionate about pasta and was patient with a couple of pasta novices.
Nick works at the English Inn, but sells his pasta at the Meridian Township Farmers Market on Saturdays and the Allen Farmers Market in Lansing on Wednesdays. Definitely check him out and if you’re interested, take a lesson from him! The cost was completely reasonable at $30 per person for an hour, especially considering he provided all of the ingredients for us. Plus after you learn, you EAT.
Fun fact: Fresh pasta can be frozen, and only takes about an extra minute or so in boiling water to cook. That means yummy pasta can be made and stowed away, so you know I’m going to be rolling orecchiette all fall long to make sure a crummy winter’s night can be improved in less than five minutes.