While I was busy configuring my new computer, Victor was in the kitchen configuring pasta. Homemade pasta. Stuffed and intricately formed pasta. By hand.

One by one by one…

I just love homemade pasta and there’s just no way I will ever make it. Victor has it down to a gastronomical science. There are times when you just leave things to the pros. We all know folks who have a signature dish – that one dish that stands out among all others – and we don’t try to replicate them. Victor has a score of them – all centered around flour and eggs. I read or heard somewhere that there were over 400 pasta shapes in Italy. I’d have one a week for the next 400 weeks…

When La Cucina Italiana was still being published, we’d get The Pasta Issue every year and Victor would cook his way through that. So, I don’t think I’m even remotely unreasonable about 400 pastas in the next 400 weeks. Heck, I’ll be retired in about 21 weeks. I can help with the cleanup!

Tonight’s pasta was Cheese Tortolloni in a Lobster Sauce. Tortolloni is just a larger tortellini – and lobster is just delicious with it!

The filling was ricotta cheese, quattro formaggio, parmesan, egg, oregano, and a bit of S&P.

The pasta dough was 1 3/4 cups Tipo “00” flour, 1/4 cup semolina, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup olive oil, 3 tablespoons water, and a pinch of salt.

Rolled thin and cut into circles…

Filled and hand-formed… one by one…

The sauce was a throw-together of lobster chunks sauteed in butter and olive oil with white wine, garlic, green onion, oregano, and a pinch of peperoncino. Simplicity. And decadent.

Just one more instance where it just doesn’t suck to be me.

21 weeks to retirement. I can get used to this.

Strike that – I am used to this.

And I’m ready for more.