The Heart of the Table | Generations & Legacy

Camp Nana: A Summer Tradition

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While brainstorming activities to do with my campers at my recent "Camp Nana," my very first idea was to offer a class on baking and cake decorating.

But here in the mountains of North Carolina, we sit in a bit of a rain forest. A humid, wet rain forest. This is not the best environment for cake decorating, as the frosting has an incredibly hard time setting up.

The Pasta Pivot

My next thought was to do a cooking class where we actively ate what we cooked for dinner—doing double duty! Then I thought about pizza, which naturally led me to think about pasta. (My mind wanders in strange and mysterious ways...)

This time, I thank goodness for strange thoughts, as this class went down with absolute pasta perfection. Of course, my over-achiever self decided that we would make differently colored pastas instead of plain old noodles. Why not? If you are going out on a limb, it might as well be a high one.

I amassed several pasta machines and decided to make a go of it. I took fresh beets and boiled them, spinach leaves and steamed them, and carrots and roasted them. Then I blended each vegetable into a vibrant purée.

From the Archives: The Camp Nana Rainbow Pasta

Culinary Play

The technique is incredibly simple and a perfect activity for kids of all ages. You dump the flour onto your work surface and use your fiercely clean, washed hands to bring it together in a circle. You create a well and put the wet ingredients in the center. (This is just like how you pool gravy in mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving!)

We used a fork to start swirling the dry ingredients into the vibrant wet purées, eventually forming everything into a smooth, colorful dough. The kids absolutely LOVED this!

Next, we cut the dough into pieces and ran it through the machine. Through various degrees of thinness, we smoothed the dough into impossibly thin sheets, cutting the final dough into the size noodles we preferred. We boiled them quickly in salted water and served them with a sweeping array of sauces.

You don’t have to have a massive group of kids to construct camp memories. You can make pasta with just one of your favorite kids, or you can gather a few and simply take turns on the machine. It’s all spectacularly good fun.

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