Diana and Danielle cutting the dough into fettuccine
Michael (of course) smiling and quizzing the group on what the secret third ingredient is
When I signed up for the pasta making class at Pasta Lab, I expected to walk in and get right to pasta-making work. Instead, owner Michael Gardner ended up spending a ton of time speaking with our group and teaching us all about the intricacies of pasta, its history, best practices and a little about life, even.
I showed up to the class 10 minutes late and walked in to find my friends already wearing aprons and waiting for me. Eight of us had signed up for this class a couple weeks ago, and I immediately felt sorry for the two strangers who also signed up for the same class and were now in for quite a night with our rowdy group.
I threw on an apron, opened the bottle of red I brought and joined the group. There was a gorgeous cutting board with cheese, fruit and prosciutto laying across it and little bowls of balsamic sitting next to the cutting board. “Tonight is going to be a night of senses,” Michael said smiling and waving his arms dramatically. “First up is taste.”
Liz chopping rotini
He invited us to sample the cheese and to dip the fruit into the balsamic. “Make sure you don’t dip the fruit in the garlic olive oil. That would be a huge mistake,” hesaid still smiling widely. Michael smiled the entire night, despite our group’s silly questions, interjections and plain rude interruptions. He’s a quirky, kind, fun guy to be around. He loves pasta and doesn’t care who knows it. Which makes sense if you’re going to own the Pasta Lab.
“When you’re making pasta, you have to focus on what feels right,” he said. We passed around a ball of dough covered in saran wrap that he’d made five hours earlier. “It feels just like Playdoh,” my friend Danielle said. She was right; my kids’ Playdoh felt exactly like that, and the comparison made sense since these days Playdoh (just like pasta) comes with cool contraptions like scissors, crank machines and other fancy tools. Pasta dough and Playdoh: twins.
Michael walked over to the cooler and pulled out a wedge of parmesan cheese bigger than his head. “Parmesan cheese is traditionally made from cow’s milk and is aged at least 12 months,” he said. “Now, Pecorino Romano should only be made with sheep’s milk. If you try making that with cow’s milk it’s just wrong, wrong, wrong.” According to Michael, the mob and cheese have an interesting history, but “that’s a story for a different time.”
“These are two of the ingredients that are needed to make pasta,” he said, holding up one container of flour and one of cracked eggs. “Can anyone guess what the third ingredient is?” Someone from our group yelled out “LOVE!?” That wasn’t the right answer.
“In the Pasta Lab, it’s Metric Ville,” he said changing the subject entirely. “When we measure and weigh here, we use the metric system only.” He turned on a machine that started to spit out rotini in one continuous swirl and demonstrated using a food mover to chop the noodles into the appropriate size. We each took turns chopping the rotini and if we waited too long to hop in the noodles got ungodly long.
My friend Liz booped me on the nose with flour while Michael slowly added egg into the stand mixer. I didn’t time it, but it felt like he’d talk for ten minutes before finally adding a tiny bit more egg to the mixer. “Is this how slow this process typically goes? Or are you just going this slow for our benefit,” I asked him. “Ahhhhh!” he said as if I’d just given him a gift. “There’s our third ingredient: time! When you make pasta you need egg, flour and … time.”
John admiring the sheet of pasta he didn’t drop
Michael’s assistant was working behind him the entire time cooking the pasta we’d chopped and then serving it to us warm and perfect. Our first course was rotini topped with a red, garlicy sauce and sprinkled with cheese that wasn’t “wrong, wrong, wrong.” I almost cried happy tears eating that pasta. I was surrounded by pasta, wine was flowing and we were learning and laughing. I don’t know what could’ve been better for a Saturday night.
Once the dough in the mixer was done, he grabbed it and threw it on the table in front of us without flouring the surface. Then he grabbed a huge rolling pin and began to roll out the dough … or so I thought. “I’m not rolling this dough,” he said while doing the exact motion a person would if they were, in fact, rolling it. “I’m preparing the dough to be rolled.” Could’ve fooled me. I would’ve gotten a big fat F on that test.
Michael eventually stops preparing to roll and starts actually rolling. I have a hard time telling the difference, but he lets us know at what point it happens, and I take his word for it. Then he throws a three-foot-long sheet of pasta to my friend John, whose eyes go wide, “I did not want to drop that,” he says, relieved he didn’t.
When COVID hit, Michael decided he would learn everything he could about pasta, but there was one self-enforced rule: No YouTube. “I just wanted to figure it out as I went along. I wanted to be a pasta apprentice,” he said, still smiling. How don’t his cheeks hurt?
Michael grabs the huge sheet of thin pasta that he’d both prepared-to-roll and then actually-rolled and slices the ends off. “Ugly tastes the same,” he says. All of the little Michaelisms and life lessons he weaved into our pasta making class made the night for me. It was my favorite part of the evening.
The second dish we sampled was a cheese stuffed ravioli served with a pesto sauce, and it made me happy to be alive. I could’ve had three servings of that one.
“Pasta Lab is like life lab,” he says. “Life, like making pasta, is a simple process, and yet there are plenty of opportunities to mess it up, right?”
We all took turns cutting fettucine and then angel hair and passing the noodles around the room to each other to, as Michael said, “ignite our sense of touch.” To be honest, that part of the night would be a germaphobe’s worst nightmare. So, if you’re a germaphobe who plans to make pasta, pack gloves. Luckily, I’m no germaphobe, and by this time the wine was flowing generously enough that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
“You make it, you take it,” Michael said as he wrapped the pasta around his hand into a neat little pile and placed it into containers for each of us to bring home.
In my experience, Pasta Lab is a worthwhile visit for anyone looking to try something fun and new. Worst case scenario? You get homemade pasta, learn about life and get to experience Michael’s perpetual smile in person.
Have an idea for Diana’s next experience? Let her know by emailing her at diana.vallette@gmail.com
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