Birthday Festivities, Part II

My sister and daughter-in-law gave considerable thought to just what my 60th birthday party should look like. Jen said she knew she wanted something interactive. They considered a pottery painting party. She said (and I think she was serious) they even spent a few minutes discussing ziplining. Thank you God for that being a short-lived consideration.

The driving force in their decision-making is that they knew that what would make me happiest is if the grandkids could be involved in a major way. My daughter-in-law’s sister told her she had used Mark and Susan and their cooking lessons for a team-building day for her staff to great success. Pasta-making was involved. Kids can make pasta. Voila!

I am sorry to say that I don’t know much about Mark and Susan (except that they are excellent chefs). My suspicion, however, is that they spend most of their time working with groups exactly as described above – in team-building exercises or holiday functions for adults. I would guess they don’t often work with children – much less six children between the ages of 3 and 10. They were amazing. I can’t emphasize that enough. They never got impatient. They stayed calm as flour was flying. They didn’t appear to get worried when a 5-year-old was seasoning the meat. And they got every single child involved in a way that was fun for everyone.

The first task they undertook was the meatballs. Susan brought over the ground meat, eggs, cheese, breadcrumbs and seasonings to the table.

She gave each of the smaller kids an egg, and allowed them to crack their egg into the meat mixture (after which she spent a bit of time removing eggshells!). Then each child put in a handful of cheese. Finally Susan passed around the pepper shaker, allowing each child to grind a bit of pepper into the mix. The meatballs were mostly made by the smaller kids, with Addie helping with supervision.

But the real fun came a bit later in the evening, after all of the sauces were almost finished. The kids were called to the table to make the pasta. There were two Kitchen Aid mixers with pasta-makers attached. If you have ever made fresh pasta, you know that you roll out the pasta, sprinkle it with flour, make the rolling mechanism one click thinner, and continue in this manner until your dough is nearly transparent. Then you cut the pasta in the shape you desire.

Addie’s job was to roll the pasta. She would lay a piece of rolled pasta onto the table. Dagny, Magnolia and Kaiya added flour. (Mylee was happily playing downstairs by herself where she apparently realized at long last she wouldn’t have to fight bigger kids for the toys she wanted. In her mind, her work was done with the meatballs!)

I can’t even begin to describe the amount of flour that was coursing through the air, onto the table, under the table, and into the pasta at the hands of a 7-year-old, and two 5-year-olds. There were literally mounds of flour on the table, of which they would

take handfuls and begin rubbing it into the pasta (and onto their faces and clothes in the process). Mark assured us that you really couldn’t have too much flour, and that was a very good thing. Flour everywhere.

Once a piece of dough was thin enough, Addie would hand it to 8-year-old Alastair, who did the cutting. He was masterful at it. He really did figure out how to carefully hold the cut pasta and lay it carefully in a mound on the table sprinkled with flour (not that it needed a lot more flour).

It was quite an assembly line, and the pasta turned out delicious.

I have watched my grandkids in school performances. I have attended dance recitals and piano recitals. I’m always happy to be there and proud of them. But I don’t think I will ever enjoy watching them more than Saturday night as I watched them prepare the meatballs and the pasta for my birthday dinner.

And now…..

Last week I gave you my recipe for caramel corn. My daughter-in-law sent me this recipe for the caramel corn she makes every year. It is, my friends, infinitely better. It is from orangette.blogspot.com.

Caramel Corn, via Lauren H.

Ingredients
1 (3½-ounce) package plain (unbuttered natural flavor) microwave popcorn, or about 10 cups fresh popcorn popped by any method, lightly salted
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped

Process
Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

If using microwave popcorn, pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Coat a large mixing bowl with nonstick cooking spray, and dump the popcorn into the bowl, taking care to pick out and discard any unpopped kernels.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla. Quickly pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, taking care to distribute it as evenly as you can. Stir in the peanuts, and transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn, and serve.

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days (or thereabouts).

Yield: about 10 cups

Nana's Note: I didn't use a candy thermometer because the boiling temperature at high altitude is different than at sea level and I didn't have time to figure out the difference. So the candy thermometer would have been useless. So I just boiled the sugar mixture for 4 minutes as my other caramel corn recipe proscribes. Also, I didn't happen to have peanuts on hand, but that would be a delicious addition -- the salty and sweet would be yummy.