After making a pass at cooking and identifying that there are some things I like to cook, our relationship improved a lot. Life in the hostel also contributed to that, because with so many people around, mealtimes were always the thing that brought us together. Every now and then, a nice group would form to share a good time, and if people passing by were lucky enough to be there on a 29th, they could also try gnocchi made by me. This year, I made a resolution to myself to cook them once a month, and I can't believe I'm already halfway through the challenge 😃.
Eating gnocchi on the 29th of every month is a tradition that, as far as possible, is quite common in Argentina. I don't know where else it is widespread, but at least we already have this day set aside for it. I like to prepare them and I have no idea when I learned to make them, but I can humbly say that I am getting better and better at it. Before I had the premise that I made gnocchi once or twice a year because they take a lot of work to prepare, but to make things interesting, this year I decided to make them every month.
This challenge started by chance on the 29th of January, when on a rather quiet night in the hostel I was with Maxi, one of the many guests I made friends with during those days. When we were figuring out dinner, we noticed that it was the 29th and as we each had two potatoes and the ingredients to make a tomato sauce, we decided it would be a good idea to make gnocchi for two. To make this pasta, the base is mashed potatoes that are mixed with egg and flour to form a dough. It is then stretched into tubes and finally cut into small cubes. The final step before boiling them would be to score them with a special device for this (or you can also achieve a similar effect by rolling each cube along the tines of a fork), but I never do this because I don't want to add more work to the job.
Making gnocchi is a fun task made up of simple steps, but can be quite time-consuming depending on the number of diners. In January we only made gnocchi for two, but by the following month, word had spread that I liked cooking this and more people wanted to join us for dinner. Just this year, February did not have 29 days so I prepared the gnocchi on the 28th in order to meet the special date. In order to afford the cost of making gnocchi for about 12 people, I decided to split the grocery bill between all of us and for $4 each, we ate gnocchi until we were tired. This was a fun day in which we all chipped in, and although we started cooking around 6 PM, dinner was not ready until 10 PM.
After the successful mass dinner, I decided that I would make gnocchi every month, to see who I would share them with each time. In the hostel there are always people passing through, so for March we were another group of all different people but we were still a big group. By then, I knew how to calculate the quantities of all the ingredients and even how to organise the people so that we could all make some at the same time and get the dinner going. A few people chopped potatoes for the mashed potatoes, then I assembled the dough, then another group made the shape of each gnocchi while another group cut the vegetables for the sauce. All this mess was fun, and of course there was never a lack of music and wine while it was happening.
I left Ushuaia the first days of April, so the 29th of April and May I was already at home with my family, so the gnocchi were only for four people. Today June 29th I am at home and in a while I have to start with all the preparations to cook for 5 people. Making gnocchi is something I enjoy doing, both doing it and sharing the moment with the people I love. For now I've been fulfilling all the days of the challenge: there are still another six months to go, so we'll see who joins the famous dinner every time 😃.
With lots of love. / Con mucho amor.
Lau 💕.
