I no longer fear ravioli. It’s not that I have ever been intimidated by pasta. I have, however, encountered a few setbacks when making the stuff from scratch.

I first attempted to make my own ravioli about fifteen years ago and my endeavor did not end well. The filling wasn’t quite right, nor was the pasta surrounding it. Most of the ravioli fell apart during the cooking process, leaving me with many flat squares of cooked pasta and many loose bits of wet filling. I had honed my tomato sauce making skills earlier on in life, but even the finest sauce in the world would not have saved that sorry-looking mess. My family was supportive, assuring me that the meal was still edible despite appearances, but oh, the shame of it all!

I can tell you with confidence that my ravioli has improved a great deal since that first attempt and my friend Ann recently gave me an opportunity to prove it. For our first cooking endeavor since last November, we put out a traditional southern Italian spread that would have made my mother smile.

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We began fairly early in the day, preparing our meats and a sizable pot of homemade tomato sauce in which to simmer them. The sauce was made using a two quarts of home-canned purée, a large can of crushed tomatoes, and a few fresh plum tomatoes that Ann had in her well-stocked kitchen. For meats we used mild Italian sausage from Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Markets, plus meatballs that we made from ground beef and pork, and some braciole that we made from a beautiful flank steak.

Ann runs circles around me when it comes to certain culinary skills, one of which is knife work. She keeps her blades razor sharp and knows how to use them. For this reason, I was grateful when she offered to slice the raw flank steak for our braciole. Within a minute or two, she had horizontally sliced that flank steak into two thinner pieces, which I then flattened out using her tenderizing mallet. I seasoned the pieces with salt and pepper before layering garlic, parsley, and grated cheese on one side — using my best approximation of how my mother used to do it. Then we rolled the pieces, tied them up, and browned them with the other meats before adding all of the meat to our sauce, which had already been simmering.

While the meat was still browning, we prepared a basic pasta dough using an imported Italian “tipo 00” flour, some eggs, a bit of olive oil, and enough water to gain the proper consistency. I worked the dough to death before wrapping it in plastic and tossing it in the fridge to rest. Then we made our filling using fresh ricotta and grated Pecorino Romano, Parmigiano Reggiano, and Asiago cheeses, plus an egg, some parsley, and other seasoning. Once that was all blended and creamy, we covered the mixture up and chilled it for an hour or two.

When the noon hour had passed, we broke out the antipasto and poured some wine. We wrapped thin slices of prosciutto around chunks of fresh canteloupe and set that out with some aged provolone and dry hot sausage. There were marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, black and green olives, and more. Our break was relatively brief, but much needed. All the while, our meat sauce simmered and our ravioli fixings chilled in preparation for the next step. By this time Ann’s kitchen was smelling quite wonderful.

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Then came the big project. Using an electric pasta machine I had inherited from an aunt of mine, we rolled out the pasta dough into ever-thinner sheets. We then applied the filling between two sheets of pasta, using a tray-type mold to form, press, and cut the square pillows of heavenly goodness. As an added measure of security, we crimped around all the edges with fork tines. We ran out of filling before we ran out of dough, so i switched out the press rollers for cutting rollers on the pasta machine and we made some spaghetti.

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Not one ravioli broke open during the cooking process. Once all the pasta had been cooked, we served it all with the meats, some oven-warmed crusty bread, a lovely tossed salad, and more wine. As is usually the case when I cook Italian, there were ample leftovers. Ann took some, I took some, and I suspect we will both be feeding people for a little while. The last time we cooked a meal similar to this, Ann fed ten to twelve people from her share of the leftovers. I blame my mother, who was my first and probably my best cooking teacher. That woman would have rather died than run out of food when she was feeding people.

By the end of the day, all the food had been divided and packaged up, some for my wife and I and some for Ann and her “kids” (neither her kids nor mine are kids anymore). All the pots, pans, dishes and utensils had been washed and put away, and every food preparation surface had been thoroughly cleaned. The only evidence of the feast we’d prepared and eaten was the wine we were still sipping and smiles on our faces.

I’d say that turned out alright. Wouldn’t you? As always, thanks for hanging with me.