My cooking lesson:

So yesterday I made some pumpkin ravioli. And I’ll be honest with you, I was really thinking it was going to be fantastic. Right up to the point where I actually had to make the ravioli. My down fall was the rolling of the dough. Apparently I did not make the dough thin enough. I mean it looked fine to me, but then, while in boil, they plumped up and became these really tough and THICK chunks.

Mother was going on and on about how good everything was smelling and that she just couldn’t wait. And I was watching the pot boil and the raviolis expand and explode.

Once the timer went off I drained the pasta and placed them on a plate. They were so heavy. One ravioli must have weighed 10 pounds. I didn’t even bother with the sage butter I just put a dab of country crock and some Parmesan on them and called it a meal.

You could hear the thud of the plate as I put it in front of Mother. I could see her wince, just a bit, before she put on her fabulous grin and proclaimed, “It looks wonderful!” This is also the woman that once ate an entire bowl of cornflakes and warm root beer that I made for her around the tender age of 5. You know, one of those, “I know you are sick in bed so I decided to make dinner all by myself” moments.

And so we began to “eat”. You couldn’t even get to the filling, the dough was that tough. The corners of the ravioli were like little Barbie doll arms.

I think I managed to eat two before I was full in a sort of my gut is going to come out of my body way. Thirty minutes later I felt physically ill. Mother ate half of one and asked if we could save the rest for later as she just wasn’t that hungry. Then I pretended I didn’t notice when an hour later she made herself a sandwich.

So I can’t make ravioli. It’s not the end of the world. But like I said yesterday, the gem is that I didn’t quit. I didn’t stop in the middle and give up. And even though the end result was gross and messy I feel a sense of pride. Or that could just be a sense of gas.