I am a sensory glutton – I’ll be the first to admit it!

I love everything about loud music that makes me dance, powerful movies that move my emotions, and amazing food that pleases my taste buds.

Touch, however, is an elusive pleasure to me.  The feel of my newborn daughter’s soft, unblemished silky skin.  Touching my son’s thick, long, and beautiful hair.  Tracing a man’s well-defined chest…

Imagine my surprise the first time that I made fresh pasta!

After mixing the ingredients, letting the dough rest, and rolling it several times through my pasta roller, the dough was – for the lack of a better word – absolutely beautiful.

It’s hard to describe the silky sensation of well-rolled, delicate pasta. My fingers would say that it is the density, weight, and smoothness of the dough that makes it wonderful. My grandmother made fresh pasta all the time and I regret not having the chance to learn from her.

The selection of ingredients directly affects the texture of your dough and, also, affects the general outcome of your pasta-making experience. I use eggs in my recipe coupled with a special combination of flour, yielding the silky texture that I am referring to.

I speak a lot about actively developing a relationship with food – touching it, handling it, understanding it’s physical properties throughout every stage of cooking. This approach is the way to go for deep-seeded learning in the kitchen.  It’s allowed me to have a good understanding of how dough behaves when handled.

This hands-on approach helps tackle challenges.  It is also good for other areas of your life:  relationships with people, relationships with yourself.  Build new realities every day.

For example, fear can really do a number to people.  Fear and lack of understanding often keeps people from enjoying fresh pasta made at home!  You don’t need a KitchenAid to mix and to knead dough – I personally find it easier to mix by hand.

At the very least, kneading dough by hand is character-building and a great stress reliever! It only takes a few minutes and a bead of sweat for dough to be well-mixed.

Where my KitchenAid has become incredibly detrimental to me, I will say, is the rolling and cutting of pasta using the KitchenAid pasta attachments – most definitely. As a personal chef, time is not on my side when trying create several entrées for one dinner service. The KitchenAid attachments have proven to be a very good investment.

The ease of making pasta makes me chuckle at how much money is spent on mass-produced, less-quality food products.  Kiss the chef that demands to make you freshly made pasta.