The Pasta Project (2023-ongoing) currently takes the shape of one-off workshops delivered through different non-profit organizations, and in the future, hopefully, also in gallery spaces and other alternative venues. The workshop’s title changes according to how the organization best sees fit to title the workshop for their audience. This is a hands-on workshop where I lead participants on how to make fresh pasta from scratch. We also make a sauce/topping, then we cook and eat the pasta together. Participants also help with clean up. The objective of The Pasta Project is to bring people together to lean a new skill in an accessible and fun environment while creating a sense of togetherness and inclusivity.
WORKSHOPS DELIVERED
Making Pasta & Get Saucy at Every One Every Day, Halifax, May 2023
Format: drop-in with two entry points (one for the pasta workshop and the other for the sauce), participants ranged from maybe 6 years old to tweens, teens and adults (total 11). We planned for each portion to take one hour but this was actually not realistic; the whole activity took three hours. The workshops were free. The organization provided a beautiful commercial kitchen (at the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre) and bought the ingredients. My labour was free as I offered to do this as part of the organization’s skill share program for community members in the North End of Halifax. Two helpers were on hand.
Workshop description: for the pasta session: Hi, I’m Laura, I’ve been making fresh pasta since 2019 picking up the skill from another fellow Italian. Join us in this hands-on session and learn how to make fettuccine from scratch, all welcome and no experience needed. For the sauce session: In this session we will learn how to cook fresh pasta paired with a beautiful zucchini sauce made from scratch. Bring in your favourite sauce recipe or share a story about your favourite dish and let’s get saucy together! (There were was a lot going on, consequently I forgot to ask participants if they wanted to share any recipes.)
Supper Club, Club Inclusion, Halifax, August 2023
Three-hour Pasta and Zucchini Sauce Workshop.
Embodied Research, Paces Lake, Nova Scotia, August 2023
As part of a class, titled Embodied Research, that I am taking at NSCAD, I will teach my classmates and the instructor how to make fresh pasta. This will happen at a the instructor’s house at Paces Lake. This class offers an opportunity to explore collaborative experiential learning and centres play and tacit forms of knowledge, and relational somatic experiences as valuable research tools.
