Pasta Every Day: Make It, Shape It, Sauce It, Eat It

Feinstein, chef and founder of the Pasta Social Club, offers a guide to making pasta doughs, shapes, fillings, and sauces in her first cookbook. Nearly 200 pages are devoted to making pasta from different regions, using different flours and flavorings, with colors and shapes galore. The author had her first hands-on lesson in Modena, Italy, while on her honeymoon, and though she didn’t start practicing the craft immediately, she has developed what she learned into something unique. Flour-and-water pasta, egg pasta, colored pasta, gluten-free pasta, and multiple gnocchi recipes start the book. There are grids throughout that offer basic proportions and suggestions for innovation. How to shape the doughs into all sorts of forms comes next, and cooks are talked through techniques with ease and great pictures. Fillings follow, then sauces with butter, cheese, tomato, meat, or fish, along with broths and soups. The soup section includes Feinstein’s Jewish grandmother’s chicken soup recipe. Helpful above all are the lessons in confidence that cooks need for seemingly intimidating process of pasta making.