I took a pasta making class on Sunday. 

We made Cheese Tortellini Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower, Bacon and Sage and Pappardelle Pasta with Kale, Italian Sausage and Arrabbiata Sauce.  

The thing I like about cooking is the creative mix of ingredients that come together into the most delicious eats.  Take pasta making for example.  There is a classic ratio for fresh pasta dough that is 3 parts flour to 2 parts egg.  Mixing, kneading and resting is all it takes and the dough is ready to be rolled, flattened, flattened some more and more, then formed into the desired shape of tortellini or papardelle.  Tada.

Our craft of knitting is a lot like pasta making. 

At first, it seems overwhelming:  how can two needles and a few skeins of fiber end up as a knitting project named, Hitchhiker scarf, The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief  or a lovely wrap?  It is all in the process and following a few simple directions.  “Do what it says”, has always been my motto in following a recipe or a knitting pattern.  There is room for adding a personal bit of this or that, but if you get the foundation right, the end result will be pleasing and a thing to make you proud. 

As I dropped the darling little pillows of tortellini into a huge pot of salted water, I watched them be tossed and turned by the rapidly boiling liquid.   Then each one popped to the surface as to yell, “Get me out of here” and that was the signal they are done and ready for sauce. 

That got me thinking how we too get dropped into “hot water” circumstances in life, very often not of our choosing or liking.  We roll around for a bit, trying to make sense of things or what to do, until that time comes when we rise to the surface and are made into a new thing because of the heat we just endured.  I know, I have had my share of these times and I’m sure there will be more.  Life has a way of throwing us again and again into pots of hard times.  My word: stick it out, you will rise to the top and be lifted out into a new thing. 

As in knitting, same advice: if the project looks difficult: stick it out, the finish is always the payoff and worth the “heat”.

Come over, I’ll make you pasta and we can knit!

~Janet