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Thursday 24 July 2014

New Flash!!! Teenage Son Makes Dinner For Parents


Now before you think so what , its just pasta, he actually made the pasta from scratch.  Holy Moly, what a surprise.  Well almost, he did call me at work during the day saying "I've made your dinner tonight, its a surprise".  Then a couple of minutes later the phone rings again and its "You are really going to be surprised, its good".  Waiting, waiting, because i know he cant hold it in any longer, and the phone rings again.  "Mum, I've got to tell you, i cant hold it in".  OK, so tell me, and so he does, to the nth degree, until i actually have to stop him to say i have to get off the phone, people want to be paid today.


Tom bought this pasta machine for me several Christmas' ago and it has remained in its box and found its way to the back of a kitchen cupboard.  Several times he has asked to make pasta and I've put it off.  Don't i feel guilty now.  I should have known that it was something he wanted and wasn't really for me.  He is an Aspie through and through and i love him anyway.



I always thought that one day i would engineer an Italian Momma into my life and she could demonstrate how to use it and we'd be making every variety, better than restaurant quality, and by the end of the day I'd be known as the Queen of Pasta throughout the land.  Well this hasn't happened (where are you, you must be out there) and so i haven't done anything about it.  I have run away from it, why? Because i am afraid to fail.

It has taken my 17 year old Aspie son, who is afraid of nothing, to open the box, go online and get a recipe from Taste and find the ingredients (or near enough as i don't stock 00 flour) and just do it.  I feel humbled.


On one of his many calls to the office today, he told me he had hung the pasta over a coat hanger and hung it in the laundry with a blow heater going as it needed to be in a warm dry area.  There was a stage in his life (around 5 - 8) when he watched cooking shows like Hughie and an old recorded series from the BBC called Travels Al La Carte with Sophie Grigson and her husband making their way around Europe.  Those tapes  were played 24 hrs (yes, even while he slept) and so i think this is where his desire to make pasta came from.  I loved that obsession and we would watch them together (hence my own memories) but now it is 24 hrs of military history, weaponry and gaming.

As you can see he made two types.  He remembered (gosh his memory is phenomenal) that in Sicily they rolled the pasta around long bamboo skewers to make spaghetti and so this is what he did.  He must have really struggled as i think he was missing a few of the finer details like oiling the skewers and having a dry floured surface etc but he did a good job none the less.



The pillows, as he called them, were stuffed with plain cooked mince which was left over from the taco making session earlier in the day.  Even Tilly got a share of it. I explained when i got home that it was called Ravioli and that he needed to remove the air around the stuffing or it would burst in the hot water and found the little crimp wheel to cut the excess pasta off.   Looks pretty good.

Forewarned i had grabbed a pre-made carbonara sauce (that is a first) as i knew it would need to be on the go the minute we reached home.  I'm surprised he wasn't jumping up and down in the driveway waiting but i guess he is now 17 and he waits just inside the door.  Ambush!



So here it is again.  You don't think he ate it though, do you?  This is Dad's dinner.  Tom doesn't touch sauces (anything wet on his food) and if he did eat pasta it would be plain with cheese sprinkled on it.   I cant eat it either as it get stuck in my band and so it was all for Dad tonight and for tomorrow's lunch.  Tom doesn't mind, his job was done.  He made it and that was all he cared about.


This is my dinner, i could eat salad everyday.

Thanks for Visiting Living In The Land Of Oz

9 comments:

  1. What a wonderful story and how great is he. Regards Kathy A, Brisbane

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  2. Oh how thoughtful I just love that he rings you several times with the surprise he is so pleased and excited with what he has made how beautiful is that. My kids love pasta I've never attempted making it though only gnocchi .

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  3. Wow Lynda! I have tried making pasta twice and have covered the floor and walls of the kitchen with flour. I have both a manual and electric pasta maker and haven't been terribly successful using either. However.....we are having a pasta making workshop at our Simple Living Toowoomba's monthly get-together this weekend so I hope to get motivated to try again.

    Your son is quite amazing!!! Well done Tom!

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  4. Thank you ladies, im pretty floored myself. Sometimes his actions totally amaze me and i think to myself "would a "normal" 17 year old do this?" Probably not and then i think of all the good things that come with autism that outweigh some of the negative. It was a really good attempt and now that he has been so brave, i think his mother just might give it a try as well.

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  5. You have a budding gourmet chef on your hands! That pasta would be amazing for most adults, so your son deserves all the praise. Very well done indeed.

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  6. Yum home made pasta. I would love that kind of surprise (sort of surprise)

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  7. Of all the things I miss about being gluten free, homemade bread and pasta top that list. Homemade pasta is amazing isn't it. :) I've a recipe for buckwheat homemade pasta but... Yeah... Too afraid to try it. ;) Maybe I should hire your chef for an afternoon. Does he do the clean up after though or is that for the sous-chef (you) to do? ;)

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    1. He didnt do too bad. There was a run of egg down the cupboard i didnt mention so i guess egg went everywhere. Im afraid to say the pasta machine is chocked and im not sure how to clean it and the instructions specifically says no water. Im hoping it will dry and ill be able to brush it out. Still on kitchen bench.

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  8. I also bought a pasta making machine, it has travelled and lived in Spain for eight years, has returned back to Ireland but still remains un-used, I really must use it sometime before it becomes an antique.

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