"What do you know about cheese? Not very much, I think."

What are the implications of a full moon whose rays never reach the ground? It's that time, and it's been overcast with clouds and fog.

The best thing about today: the man walking away from me in the crosswalk, carrying two full Trader Joe's bags by the handles, wearing long shorts and pink Converse high-tops.

We started class today with the inevitable description of Italy as "the boot," and Silvia said, "Maybe it's just me, but I don't see it."

My mother taught me that if I couldn't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all. So I don't have much to say about today's class. Even the really slick pasta-making trick that Chef Alain shared was muted by the ill-tempered way he dismissed Andrea's efforts. She has an Italian heritage and grew up making homemade pasta, but there was nothing correct about the way she was manipulating the dough, as far as Chef was concerned.

[After rolling the pasta through the machine a couple of times, he squared off the edges and neatly attached the ends together with water while the dough was in the roller, making a loop like the never-ending towel in a gas station restroom. The advantage is that you can keep rolling the same loop through the rollers, decreasing the spacing as desired, until you reach the proper thickness, and you've never taken the dough out of the machine.]

This is my Charlotte Russe. The fillings are raspberry and vanilla bavarian cream.



And here's the fettuccini with vegetable sauce that I made with Andrea and Derrick.



We're counting down the days on this one.