It may sound provocative, but I am up for anything. Cooking for events that is. If I have the time, I will have a dish for you. So when my girlfriends and I decided to hold a Girl’s Night in for Breast Cancer Awareness evening this month, I knew I could contribute a pink dish. The only hitch? They wanted something savoury for the dinner. Sweets were sorted and were baggsed eagerly by the rest of the girls. They saved me the main as they knew that I liked a challenge (either that or they didn’t want to deal with a pink main). I have been frantically busy with the Sydney International Food Festival so I hadn’t really thought about what to do until a review copy of The Silver Spoon Pasta landed on my doorstep. I flicked through it poring over pasta dishes for my husband (who is a pasta fiend) before seeing a dish that was so perfect for my girlfriends and I that I placed the ribbon bookmark (pink of course, see it was a sign!) in that page.

That evening, I contemplated my liquor cabinets. I needed 200mls of white wine and when I looked up, I saw a bottle of the perfect thing, Moet Brut Rose in exactly the right size in a blushing pink shade! As I was walking home I realised that I hadn’t bought flowers and when I was about to turn back I spied a big overgrown tree full of pink flowers spilling out of the neighbours fence onto the street. I snipped some and took this as another sign that the universe was in support of the pink dinner.

It was relatively quick to make and everyone adored it and yes I know, I know, it’s not strictly pink is it. I perhaps should not have used the porcini fettucine as that has a decidedly brown shade to it and a regular pasta (or indeed a beetroot pasta) would have been more fitting but I had not the inclination to make some nor did I see any to purchase. I did explore some recipes for beetroot pasta but many had said that the colours drains from the vivid pink to a pale pink which just would have been rather disappointing. I do prefer my smoked salmon uncooked but it wasn’t too bad at all and it was eaten happily by all with some taking seconds.

As for The Silver Spoon Pasta, this was a cookbook that many of these girlfriends wanted. The Silver Spoon is seen by many as the definitive cookbook for Italian just as Je Sais Cuisiner or I Know How To Cook is to French. Originally published in 1950 by the Architecturel magazine Domus, the recipes are easily achievable as the ingredients are easily sourced (with perhaps the exception of a white Bianco D’Alba truffle). The photographs are lovely but simple in styling, often styled in a bowl or pot on a textured surface.

Maltagliati with Peppers

The book of 350 recipes is split into two sections: dried pasta versus fresh pasta with the dried pasta further split into long pasta such as linguine, spaghetti and less common ones like Buccatini and Bavette among others and short dried pasta like Fusilli, Rigatoni and less common ones like Ruote and Sedani. The fresh pastas range from Cut pastas like Bigoli, fettucine and my favourite papardelle (for which I now have 9 new recipes!) as well as pastas like Maltagliati which means “badly cut” in Italian. The other fresh pastas are filled pastas including Agnolotti, Pansotti, the wonton-like Casonsei and Tortellini. You get the picture though, we’re talking every shape of pasta you could dream up. The fresh pasta section comes with 3 recipes for fresh pasta dough (plain, green and red, how Italian flag!).

Most of the recipes for the sauces are made up of 6-7 ingredients or less including things like olive oil, butter and salt and pepper so they’re very achievable. Preparation times and cooking times are listed for each recipe so it is easy to figure out which ones are good for fast cooking after work particularly if you buy the fresh pasta (although there are instructions for making your own pasta too, should the urge strike). They explain the differences in wheat flour used for dried versus fresh pasta (fresh or homemade pasta uses soft wheat flour) and they explain why the addition of egg improves the consistency and how each should be cooked – fresh pasta absorbs more water and requires less time to cook and can be stored for up to 15 days. Also importantly they teach you which sauces match with which pastas.

I’m seeing this Trofie pasta for Halloween..

Summary

Achievability: 4 out of 5

Usability: 4 out of 5 Recipes are sectioned off by pasta type

Degree of difficulty: Easy, particularly if you buy the pasta but homemade isn’t as hard as it may seem

Food porn score: 3 out of 5

Post it note tabbed recipes: 15

Gift book: Pasta lovers will adore this but it is also good for people who want quick meals as well as some slow cooking.

So tell me Dear Reader, which pasta shape is your favourite? I heart papardelle and spaghetti, what are yours?

And if you need any more Pink inspiration, check out these other past NQN recipes!

Strawberry St Honore, Poodle Cookies, Strawberry & Pink Peppercorn Macarons, Coconut Ice Ice Cream, Taramasalata Dip, Ispahan Cupcake and Sour Cream & Rose Mini Cakes.

The Silver Spoon Pasta is published by Phaidon Books and retails for $59.95.

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I’ve often said things happen very serendipitously for me, especially as far as this blog is concerned. One afternoon I was strolling through Woollahra and I decided to pop into the Donna Hay General Store. I enquired about Halloween decorations (as I tend to do) and the salesperson said that she’d go downstairs and ask Donna. My head did a swivel. Was Donna Hay in the actual store? It turns out she was! She came upstairs with Petrina her business manager and when I mentioned needing the Halloween decorations for my blog they said “Oh you’re Not Quite Nigella?”. You could have knocked me over with a feather. They knew who I was? “We were just talking about you!” they said. It turns out that they actually read my blog!

Donna was dressed casually and she is small in height-I always assumed that she was quite tall from her appearance on Masterchef. They even mentioned taking down the prices of the macarons and making them bigger after reading my comments on it and how for the next 5 days after reading that they asked the customers in the store about how much they’d pay for a macaron! We also discuss her brush with Nigella Lawson – literally, as Nigella rushed past Donna while exiting a London Department Store and getting into a waiting car (she has good manners and apologised for bumping into Donna) and it is with reluctance that I leave as it felt like we could have chatted for a long time.

Rum & Craisin Ice Cream Puddings using a Donna Hay recipe

I had to dash so I chalked that up to one of those funny coincidences and wonderful moments that happen in the food blogging world. Fast foward a few days later and Donna had happily agreed to an interview! So without further ado, here is a Q & A with Donna Hay!

How did you make the transition from a food stylist to food editor at Marie Claire to a cookbook author? Was it hard? What obstacles did you face?

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Desserts are like expensive shoes. You know you shouldn’t buy more but they’re just so irresistable that you just cannot say no. So when I invited my friend Queen Viv to accompany me at the Sugar hit at the Inter Continental Hotel I had no idea that she was in her final days of a detox. But like the trooper that she is, she decided that today would be the last day of her detox and if you’re going to celebrate the end of a detox, you may as well do it in style.

So on this Thursday night we arrive at the Intercontinental. We find a park a few streets away and in the cold wind and the high heels we’re just glad to be able to sit down and have a nice glass of something and a dessert. We’re a little early for the Sugar Hit by about 20 minutes so they ask us to take a seat and they’ll bring it out. We choose a banquette of course and sink our weary wind battered selves into it and before long, the waiter arrives with the dessert wine. For the cost of $20 you get a dessert and a glass of Brown Brothers Moscato dessert wine which is a lovely, very sweet drop.

Front to back: Gold Leafed White Chocolate Dome, Dark Chocolate Chilli Slice and Chocolate Hazelnut Macaroon with Chocolate Ganache with Nashi Pear Chutney & Vanilla-Honey Syrup

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