What I learned at VSB and how it changed how I make homemade pasta forever....

I should start by telling you that I am half Italian. My mother is Italian. I grew up cooking alongside my mother making all of our family Italian recipes as she learned from my grandmother. Every Sunday after church, we went to my Italian grandmother's house where she made Sunday dinner, always Italian and always made from scratch. So I thought I knew a lot about Italian food, and I do. But VSB took me to the next level.

I try to take a cooking class whenever I visit a city or country. I have taken several classes in Italy. I usually learn something new with each class. But the classes at VSB changed my way of cooking Italian, at least homemade pasta and Bolognese.

I spent a week in Bologna, eating some of the best local pasta dishes and enjoying the history of this beautiful city. La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese — VSB to anyone who's been— was the reason for my visit. I have been making fresh pasta for years but VSB took me to the next level. I took a 3 day pasta class and added on the lasagna class. We learned how to make pasta by hand (no mixers, no pasta machines), hand rolled and hand cut/shaped. Italy has a history of passing down their family techniques from generation to generation through cooking together. Passing on their food and traditions from a young age, Mothers teaching daughters how to make pasta by hand, hand cut or filled and shaped. VSB is a family cooking school, started by the mother of the owner. The owner still cooks at the school daily. Her daughter teaches the classes and her granddaughter was always at the school learning the business firsthand. It's a family cooking school to teach the Bolognese way of making pasta.

The thing I came home with wasn't a recipe. It was a habit.

There is a correct way to make pasta. It is best prepared by hand because only by touching the dough will you know what it should feel like for each step. The kneading isn't like kneading bread, it is a way to add air to the dough to create a soft light dough. Rolling has a specific technique as well...each step is so important and the result is a silky pasta like I had never made before.

In Bologna, there is only one way to make Bolognese and I have to say, it's the best I've ever had and now the only recipe I use. It requires 3 hours of cooking and the recipe is pretty simple but exact in its ingredients. The result is a rich, light Bolognese that is wonderful with your homemade hand cut tagliatelle or in your homemade lasagna.

The best part of making homemade pasta is how fast and easy it is and so worth the effort.

Not just for special occasions, but for weekday dinners, dinners with friends, family dinners. It has become another part of my daily cooking.

— Robin