‘You. Me. Our respective doughs. Sixty seconds. As many free-form pasta shapes as we can make.’
He nodded, feigning formality. ‘I accept your challenge of a pasta duel.’
‘No pasta machine. Just hands. Whoever can make the most shapes wins.’
‘You’re on, but please be gentle with me. I’m not a sfoglino. I think we’ve established that already.’
‘And I thought we’d just established that we will always be gentle with each other?’
‘Touché.’
Francesca slapped her floury hands together over the kitchen trough to clean them a little, then reached for the manual eggtimer on the bench. She cranked it to sixty seconds, then counted, ‘Tre. Due. Uno . . . Via!’
Alessio grabbed his dough and immediately quartered it, rolling each portion into a ball. But that was as far as Francesca’s initial observations of Alessio went. Turning her attention to her own ball she cut it in half, grabbed one portion, rolled it thin, then folded it over and over itself. Taking her knife she announced a new name with each cut. And, within seconds, ‘Tagliatelle. Linguine. Fettuccine. Capellini. Tagliolini. Pappardelle.’ Then with the crimped-edged cutter, she worked for a moment, then announced, ‘Reginette!’ Taking the leftover dough in her hand she rolled it back into a ball, then flattened the mass to three-millimetre thickness with the rolling pin. ‘Lasagne.’ She cut off a three-inch-wide square of dough. ‘Fazzoletti.’
‘What?’ Alessio breathed. ‘I’m only on three! I thought we said gentle.’
‘I am being gentle!’ She dropped the rolling pin and grabbed her last piece of dough, working it into a long sausage shape. She rolled and elongated it until she was able to work with such confidence that her hands simply knew what to do, and she could watch Alessio. She grabbed her butter knife and began, ‘Orecchiette. Lumaconi. Conchiglie.’ Then, out came the dowel rod, which she rolled through the pasta. It wrapped together. ‘Gemelli. Casarecce. Fusilli al ferretto!’
‘Francesca!’
‘What? I am going slower than normal for you!’
‘I’m on seven and you’re on—’
‘Quindici!’
‘Take your fifteen and—’
‘Now, now, that’s not in the spirit of the game, Alessio!’
‘Neither is the demolition of your opponent!’
‘Cavatelli! Sixteen! And we have ten seconds!’
‘Shit!’ Alessio lurched to grab more dough and the rolling pin, moving with turbulent speed.
Deciding to finish on something more refined, Francesca whipped out the crimped cutter and fashioned a farfalla, setting it down beside the rest. Turning her attention to the timer she announced, ‘Annnnd, finito!’ The buzzer rang on cue.
‘Jesus,’ Alessio panted, dropping the rolling pin to the bench. ‘I knew you were good, but you’re also goooood. Look at these babies.’ He peered over at her pasta board and inspected her collection, correctly identifying all of them.
‘Aspetta. Look at your pasta, too.’ Alessio had got as far as ten shapes, well formed and well finished. ‘Which are you most proud of?’ she asked.
‘The raviolo.’
‘Ah. But what did you fill it with?’
‘Just dough.’
‘You made a raviolo with pasta dough filling? That isn’t a true raviolo!’
‘What was I supposed to fill it with?’
She gestured sarcastically around the kitchen. ‘You find something! Anything! I am disqualifying the raviolo on account of heresy against the pasta gods.’ She picked it up and tossed it dramatically into the compost bin, sending Alessio into a fit of laughter.
‘My baby! You killed my pasta baby!’
‘We take our ravioli seriously here in Impastino. I cannot have this leaking to the public. The raviolo is gone!’
