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The Passing Down of Pasta

Sunset recipe retester Kevyn Allard, an avid home cook, had never made fresh orecchiette pasta before. But for a story in our June issue, we asked her to give it a go, to make sure our recipe worked. Strangely enough, her uncle had called her just days earlier. He had a gift for Kevyn, he said: her Italian grandmother’s pasta knife, which he’d just rediscovered nearly a decade after her death.

Margo True

(Photo by E. Spencer Toy)[/caption]

Sunset recipe retester Kevyn Allard, an avid home cook, had never made fresh orecchiette pasta before. But for a

Uncle Mike sent Kevyn the knife. It was delicate and a little worn, with a fancy column handle and a rounded tip; it had probably been made in the 1920s. As fate would have it, a week after she received her gift, Mike passed away. “It’s almost as though Grandma was telling him to hurry up and give it to me,” said Kevyn.

She brought her grandma’s knife into Sunset’s test kitchen, and proved to be an ace at making orecchiette, right out of the gate. Some things are meant to be.


Orecchiette 101: Make this simple pasta at home tonight.

Two great recipes: Serve Orecchiette with clams, chiles, and parsley or cherry tomatoes, marjoram and ricotta salata.