September to February = Moule Pasta

I just invested in this antique fettucini machine. I absolutely love the look of it, and I'm constantly in awe of old food making devices ; they just seem a lot more interesting in its functionality than the ones we see today.







So what's cool about this device is the name of it. Its called "La Chitarra" which in italian, means GUITAR, and if you look at the structure it does mimic the base structure of a guitar. Someone should really invent such a device for cutting fabric strips of BIAS, especially for super annoying fabrics like chiffon. If you're an avid sewer you know you just dread the feeling of having to cut bias strips yourself. If you're interested in La Chitarra, you can buy them here!! Or if you're not hooked on the price, you can also google "chitarra pasta maker".





So apparently you're supposed to use this roller and apply pressure on the pasta sheet so that the wires cut through the sheet.
It took a while to do this, longer than I thought it would take anyway.



After you keep rolling back and forth, the pasta sheet starts to separate through the metal strings and falls into the box below. I had a hard time with this and realized you have to flour the sheet so that it doesn't stick.










One of my favorite ingredients about making a pot of Mussels are the shallots. I like a lot of shallots, and sliced garlic.





Theres nothing easier/simpler to make than mussels, just sweat some garlic/shallot/red pepper flakes and thyme in some olive oil, put the mussels in, and pour in a good helping of white wine. I obviously don't measure how much wine I put in there, the alcohol cooks off and as most of you already know.. always use a wine that you wouldn't mind drinking! I used white wine because I wanted a simple broth. Actually, the simpler the method, the tastier the mussels I think. I've used tomato sauce for mussels but I like the clean taste of just the mussels and white wine.





I served the mussels in a pot before adding the pasta. I've added the pasta in before, but its a nuisance to eat pasta in a haphazard bed of mussels.



Proper way to eat mussels; use an empty shell to clasp onto the meat of another mussel. There are no forks used in France.





Pasta water.



So after a good deal of the mussels are done, I just used the same pot and placed the cooked noodles inside of the broth and remaining scattered mussels.