Life...: Tortellacci

We are Italian right? Italians don't eat turkey or ham for Christmas. Just kidding, they might, I don't really know. These Italians, however, don't. We eat tortellacci and lots of it. What is tortellacci? I suppose the best way to describe it is like tortellini. Except bigger and filled with a mixture of cheeses and spinach. And pretty much the best pasta dish ever. It is twice as good in Italy where they can get ricotta cheese made of goat's milk. We haven't been able to find that here so the flavor is a bit different, but just as yummy. Maybe when I have my own goats I can start making my own goat's milk ricotta...

Anyway, I digress. We normally only have tortellacci once a year for Christmas, mainly because it is labor intensive. A labor of love, but labor none the less. If we are lucky, my Mom will make them twice a year. Nonna (my Dad's Mom) taught my Mom how to make tortellacci. I doubt Nonna ever followed a recipe, but my mom has one in this old Italian cook book. The pages are all falling out and there are lots of notes written in it like, 1994: Fred ate 40 tortellacci, Claudia ate 20, the girls ate 15 each... I remember standing at the counter on a stool when Nonna came to visit so I could help fold tortellacci. I am sure we didn't actually fold many, we probably just played with the dough. Or made "lunch boxes", dough with the filling folded into squares rather than the correct shape. Nonna lived in Illinois and we didn't get to see her as often as any of us would have liked and I will always treasure these memories. I only wish I had realized before she passed away how much I would love to have picked her brain for her recipes. I do have a few of them and they say things like "10 soup spoons of water". These recipes will take a bit of trial and error for me. What if her soup spoons were bigger than my soup spoons?

Wow, another tangent. But really it is all part of the back story. Why we have tortellacci for Christmas. Why folding tortellacci has special memories for me. Growing up my Mom bore the brunt of the labor. Not this year though. Gina was there helping of course. She doesn't have a car so she really didn't have a choice.... I came up, Carla showed up after work and our friend Laurie was there too. She even made her own dough and filling so she could take some to her family. Maybe we have helped inspire a new tradition for others? This year involved a new step, throwing the tortellacci in a pot of boiling water just until they rise to the surface. Apparently this is supposed to prevent them from splitting open in the pot later after you have frozen them. Maria taught my Mom this in Italy while they were visiting. We hope it works, it is always sad to lose a tortellacci to splitting. There was plenty of wine, I mean, work for everyone and we had wonderful afternoon. Bon appetit!

Laurie and Mom whipping up a batch of dough.