Oodles of Noodles at Avantí

Ever since I was a child, I had a great love for noodles. I could eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I asked for them so much that my mother actually nicknamed me Noodle. So you can imagine my excitement when Avantí Restaurantsaid that their pasta chef, Margarita, was willing to share her noodle making secrets with me.

Of course, this made my beloved father very happy. We eat at Avantí often - dad loves this restaurant. Inevitably, we’ll hear stories about his childhood and how growing up in his Italian household you didn’t know it was Monday if you didn’t have pasta on Sunday. From there he goes on about growing up in Buffalo and walking to school in the snow. Fortunately, the service at Avantí is timely and dad usually stops talking when his food arrives!

Now I have eaten many a noodle in my day, but I must confess that I never knew what was involved in making it from scratch. All of the macaroni I’ve eaten comes from a box. Each night Margarita prepares three fresh homemade pasta specials. The evening I joined her, we made seafood ravioli, spinach fettuccini and gnocchi. We started with ravioli. I learned that big balls of dough, loaded with flour, get inserted into a fascinating device I like to call, the Noodle Crank. The noodle crank flattans the dough out, making the ravioli casing, and the filling is squeezed onto half of it in small, round clumps. The other half is then layed over the filling clumps, creating a second layer. Next we used a noodle press to close the ravioli, and then we cut them and tossed them onto a tray to be cooked.

The noodle crank not only flattens, but slices dough as well. I was able to make spinach fettuccini using the crank. It sliced the dough into long, skinny strips, just the right shape and size for the fettuccini dish. The last macaroni on the menu was a special one called gnocchi. Gnocchi, I learned, gets its unique texture from mashed potatoes. With our hands we mashed potatoes, flour and eggs together to create the gnocchi dough. My brother James got to participate in this one. Next, Margarita gave us each big sections of dough which we rolled by hand, and chopped up into small chunks.

This noodle making process was quite a production. All the while, Margarita had special sauces simmering on burners nearby which James constantly stirred. The smells were making us hungry. We then headed to a table to await our creations. A lovely trio of pasta, each with a different sauce, arrived. Excited, my eight year old brother picked up a spoon of gnocchi and said, “Mmm... this Milwaukee smells great!“ After a good laugh, we all dug in. Each pasta was mouthwatering and delicious. James and I couldn’t believe we had helped make such a delicious meal.

Thank you Margarita, for sharing with us your wonderful, scrumptious secrets! There’s only one problem... now father wants me to make noodles from scratch every Sunday afternoon!

Avantí Restaurant is an award winning Italian restaurant in the heart of Phoenix. Family friendly, it is located at 2728 E. Thomas Road. For more information, call 602-956-0900 or visit www.Avanti-AZ.com.

Danielle Ruberto is the 15 year old daughter of Key publisher Tom Ruberto and a sophomore in high school.