Thanks for following me all along the way for this journey to Food Revolution Day 2014.  You have been there for me through the idea creation, the panic of looking for funding, and for the set-up process.  Making pasta with our little chefs was so much fun.  I think I am still floating on the joy they created.

The goal of Food Revolution Day is to get kids excited about cooking.  What is more fun than making dough from scratch and then playing with a pasta machine?  Maybe an epic sing-along of the song “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen……..but more about that later.

The girls started arriving right at 10:00AM Saturday morning.  After they had registered, made sure they had their hair pulled back, and washed their hands they were sent to the room’s stage to await further instruction.  We certainly didn’t want them playing with the flour while they were waiting for things to start.  Can you imagine the mess that would have been?  Flour flying everywhere……..too funny!  And not going to happen under my watch.  LOL! I welcomed the girls and we had a nice talk about eating a rainbow of colors each day.  Their rainbow colored aprons are to be a reminder to eat the rainbow each day.

We then welcomed Chef Lou Ann Colaric and we played a game of “Name that fruit or vegetable.”  We had a mango, avocado, lettuce (that wasn’t iceberg), shallots, asparagus and a few others.  I was pretty impressed with how quickly they were able to guess.  We had a few wrong guesses, but for the most part………..they were right on it.  Way to go parents! That is the result of food education at home.

We then went to work on making the pasta.  At each station we had a cup of flour, an egg, salt, and water.  Chef Lou Ann demonstrated how we would should be mixing the ingredients to form a dough.  We had girls aged 6-14 at our Food Revolution Day event.  I was so impressed how they were all able to work on their dough.  We had plenty of Girl Scout leaders to help the girls, but in the end………….the girls were doing the bulk of the mixing.

We then wrapped our dough in plastic wrap so that it would not dry out while waiting to use the pasta machines.  Boy, I thought that wrapping line would never end.  We had over 100 girls there………..that’s a lot of girls!  Chef Lou Ann inspected each ball of dough as it came through the line.  Some of them needed a little more flour added.  I think there was a bit of worry at times when the ingredients didn’t come together quickly.  As a result, lots of water was added.  Any of you who have worked with dough understand the battle of not enough water to “oh boy……….too much water”.

Thanks to a very generous donation from the Loretta Paganini School of Cooking we had several beautiful pasta machines to use.  Loretta’s school is known around the world.  If you are in the Cleveland, Ohio area take a look at her course schedule and sign up for a class.  You will have an amazing experience.

The girls had a blast watching the pasta get longer and longer with each run through the pasta machine.  Laughter filled the room.  When all the girls were finished rolling out their dough, Chef Lou Ann demonstrated how to cut the pasta into fettuccine and place it gently on the tray to await cooking.

At last it was finally time for the cooking…………….Oh, I almost forgot!  Check back next time to find out about the epic “Let It Go” sing-along.

Have you ever made homemade pasta?  What is your favorite shape to cut?  Have you ever attended a cooking lesson with your child?  What is your favorite song from Frozen?

The Juggling Real Food and Real Life Newsletter is Coming!