After we all went to Tamero, the fresh pasta-making restaurant in Firenze, Anna and Holden had decided on a gnocchi making date. He talked about it constantly. Finally, the weekend was here and it was time to go to Luca and Anna's house to make gnocchi. Luca still lives in the house where he was raised, along with his cousins and siblings (it is divided into apartments) and it is beautiful and has a beautiful garden with beautiful views all the way down to the coast. When we first arrived, we played for a little while with Luca's dog, Otto, in the garden. Otto performed a few tricks for Holden and then Holden was ready to get inside and start cooking.
Inside Luca's house, Anna had already boiled the potatoes and was taking them out of the pot of steaming water.
She peeled the potatoes, since they were too hot for Holden to touch, and then it was Holden's turn to squish the potatoes in the press. He loved this part, although he said he needed more muscles (like Dave has) because the press was hard to push down.
Then they added the flour to the squished potatoes and then added two egg yolks and some salt.
After that was the fun part of mixing it all together by hand.
Once it was mixed into a uniform ball, they had to roll it into snakes and then cut the snakes into small pieces. Then came the tricky part of rolling the gnocchi on the tines of the fork to get the tiny ridges that are good for holding the sauce. It took many tries, but Holden finally mastered it.
Anna dusted the gnocchi one last time with some flour and dropped them into a pot of boiling water until they floated to the top. She topped the gnocchi with a pomodoro sauce and we sat down at the table to eat.
After this primi, came the secondi of involtini and roasted carrots. Some of the involtini had proscuitto inside, others had a raisin and pignoli surprise. After this was a chocolate cake covered with berries, special for Holden. And then coffee and chocolates from the delicious pasticceria in Castelletto. The Rocco's definitely know good food!
After dinner, we had some great conversation and Holden and Luca entertained us with a ukelele duet.
Then Holden played with some dominoes for awhile and the presepe (manger scene) Anna had purchased from either Sicily or Sardenia or Corsica, I can't remember. We all sat around and listened to ukeleles, while in food coma mode, and looked at the beautiful view of the coast from the living room of Luca and Anna. Holden discovered a light Luca had from Paris that glowed in different colors and kindly Luca gave it to Holden, his ukelele partner, as a parting gift.
We hated to leave but knew that the Clemson and South Carolina football game would be on soon and the students were waiting for us to come watch it with them. And Holden couldn't wait to go to sleep and watch his new light glow in the darkness!
