Pasta Making Class with Stefanie Paganini & Chapter Meeting

By Elaine Cicora

Thirteen lean and hungry members of the Cleveland Chapter of LDEI made their way to Chesterland on March 7. Their destination: the International Culinary Arts and Sciences Institute. There we were greeted by Dame Stefanie Paganini, who provided a brief tour of the lovely facility that her mother, Loretta Paganini, founded in 2005 as the professional arm to her popular cooking school.

Dame Candice Berthold lead us in a brief business meeting (is 20 minutes a new record?), during which we enjoyed wine and some delicious avocado hummus made by the ICASI prep kitchen. Then it was time to roll up our sleeves, tie on our aprons, and head into the pastry kitchen where we were soon up to our elbows in fresh pasta dough.

Stefanie revealed to us the secrets of striped tri-color pasta –  white (plain), green (spinach), and red (red pepper) – and set us free in teams of two to craft bowties and pansotti, a stuffed tortellini-like pasta whose name, significantly enough, means "pot belly!" The interactive task not only elicited our creativity (pasta dough patterns ranged from tidy stripes, to argyles, to wavy psychedelic stripes), but also plenty of laughter and good-natured chatter.

(Of course, what happens in the kitchen stays in the kitchen. But it really is amazing what you can learn about someone when you're cooking together!)

Stefanie topped the bowties with a chunky salsa al pomodoro. The ricotta-and-prosciutto-stuffed pansotti were finished in a delightful almond pesto.

Back in the dining room, we feasted family-style on overflowing bowls of both types of pastas – it all tasted wonderful! – and then finished our meal with homemade apricot almond biscotti and coffee.

Before we knew it, it was 9 p.m. and time to adjourn. We headed out into the springlike evening with well-earned big bellies of our own, along with recipes for future use and warmest thanks to Stephanie Paganini for one of the best-tasting programs in memory.