I am a lover of food and eager to try new cooking courses.  So, when I met Jaco Brand, owner of Picardi Place in Rawsonville, there was no hesitation to scream out, “I wanna be Italiano.”
Having recently moved to Cape Town, my hunger is to explore this amazing city, it places and people.  With this zest, I drove out bravely to an unknown place for me, and enjoyed the most scenic drive to Rawsonville.  The day blessed me with sunshine and blue sky.
The “Wanna Be Italiano” Pasta Course is a serene experience away from the hustle & bustle of the city.  On arrival, the warm & friendly greetings are accompanied by coffee and a most beautiful farm space and surrounding views.
The pasta course idea was born following Jaco’s visit to Italy where he travelled and did cooking courses.  A landscape artist by profession, he then fused both home-grown farming and cooking classes to create a very educational, fun and interesting experience.  Whilst meeting his donkey on the farm, we were guided to his permaculture vegetable garden where we picked our own fresh produce and got a farming 101 lesson.
It was fascinating to learn how to make fresh home-made pasta…hand-made.  Yes, at first I could not believe it.
 
All set-up on the table – flour, eggs, olive oil and salt.  We blended these basic everyday ingredients with our fork tool.  And then the major hand work-out begun– slowly to knead the dough until the right consistency, then stretch out long over the table rolling-out the dough to about 2-3cm thick.  Next, we created the form to cut into pieces which opened into beautiful long portions of pasta.
Whilst the pasta dried in almost every spare hanging space in the kitchen, we set out to prepare the yummy bolognaise from scratch.  Of course, there was wine served throughout…what is Italian cooking without vino…and lots of it.  The pasta dried for the hour or so, and literally took less than 5 minutes to cook in boiling water.  It was amazingly simple and scrumptious.
 
More vino…and finally relaxed…we all indulged in eating our own hand-made pasta and bolognaise…delizioso.
Our host, Jaco, rounded-off the spoil with his mum’s home-made carrot cake.
This was a heavenly few hours of cooking adventure.  “Wanna Be Italiano”” pasta-making course was solo fantastico…grazie.

 
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