PERSPICACIOUS PASTA PURVEYOR

PERSPICACIOUS PastaPURVEYOR

AN EPIPHANY LEADS TO LEAH FERRAZZANI’S SEMOLINA

BY FRIER MCCOLLISTER

On a placid and warm Tuesday afternoon, the tiny Semolina Artisanal Pasta showroom is well stocked.

It was June 15, and master pasta maker and owner, Leah Ferrazzani, returned to produce fresh batches of her locally renowned pasta. She boasts an impressive list of wholesale clients — all chefs and restaurants revving back up to life at full capacity in their dining rooms.

She had more to celebrate: She returned after recovering from a herniated disk in her neck.

Ferrazzani and her two new assistants, Samuel Schiffer and Noah Sonnenburg, bustled about the gleaming, industrial pasta extruder in lab coats, hairnets, gloves and masks like engineers in a clean room at JPL. For Ferrazzani, her masterful pasta is the result of a subtle alchemical calibration of art and science.

Subtle beginnings

Her pasta career started in the laundry room of her Mount Washington home. In 2013, while she was on maternity leave with her second child, she noted to her husband, Neal, a software engineer, that she could not find decent, organically sourced dried pasta in local supermarkets.

After months of trying to figure out what she was going to do, she had an epiphany.

“I came down from taking a shower one morning, while I was on maternity leave,” Ferrazzani says.

“I told my husband that I was going to start a business making dried pasta because I couldn’t find any locally made organic dried pasta. He basically said, ‘What do you know about making dried pasta?’ I said, ‘Absolutely nothing!’”

Eighteen months of research and development ensued, including the obligatory trip to Italy. Her destination was Gragnano on the Amalfi coast, south of Naples on the Mediterranean.

“I stayed for about 10 days. It’s one of the only D.O.P. (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta) regions for pasta in Italy,” she said.

The D.O.P. is the national certification of regional authenticity, granted to maintain traditional culinary methods for Italian cuisine. The designation applies to everything from Italian wine making to pizza preparation.

Back home, Ferrazzani rehabbed the family’s laundry room for the project.

“I tiled the wall, floor and ceiling and brought in a hydrostat and a Vicks vaporizer,” she says.

She positioned box fans around the rooms and her husband figured out how to electrically rewire the room to accommodate the power needs of an industrial extruder.

Ferrazzani checked weather conditions in Gragnano.

“I modeled the climate in my drying room after the weather on the coast of Naples,” she explains.

While monitoring temperature, humidity and wind velocity data from the coastal Italian town, she worked to duplicate the same conditions in the laundry room.

Semolina Artisanal Pasta is locally renowned for its freshness.

Owner Leah Ferrazzani extrudes linguini.

“I used all that information I had gleaned from staring at the actual pasta dryers at the factories that I worked at, and synthesized what the weather was doing in Gragnano, where the pasta was traditionally being dried in the street,” Ferrazzani explains.

At the same time, Ferrazzani sought out contacts and sources for advice and direction. The process called upon the skills she developed as a master’s student in journalism.

“Fundamentally, my journalism degree became most useful, more useful than it ever had, in being able to seek out people and ask questions and find my way,” she notes.

After earning her degree, she took a job as a photo editor for the art world magazine, Bomb. After an unexpected layoff and in need of a job, she worked as a server at a Tribeca restaurant but soon found herself promoted to assistant general manager.

“That really began to cement my interest in food,” says Ferrazzani, who also worked as a food writer and in public relations.

After a stint in publishing at Harper Collins, she took a position at Jason Denton’s wine bar, ‘Inoteca on Rivington Street.

“I learned so much about Italian food there,” Ferrazzani says. “It opened my eyes to regional Italian food.”

Ferrazzani returned to the West Coast and worked as a food writer in Lake Tahoe and a wine and spirits contributor for the San Francisco Chronicle. After working the Sonoma harvest season at Pax Wines, Ferrazzani relocated to Los Angeles to pursue more writing assignments.

Within a couple of hours of her arrival, she got a call from her old general manager in Tribeca directing her to a local job opportunity. Nancy Silverton was about to open her now-famed Pizzeria Mozza and hired Ferrazzani as assistant general manager. Her experience working with Silverton forged a bond that would prove to be helpful.

“Nancy has always been very generous with sharing both her knowledge of the food business and the things she’s passionate about (and) her sense of hospitality with all of the people who worked with her,” Ferrazzani notes.

“Since I have left, she has been very generous with her time, in being a mentor.”

Seeing the light

Ferrazzani continued to pursue food writing for various independent outlets in Los Angeles and served as a chief staff writer for K&L Wine Merchants, composing its newsletter for more than seven years.

While she was on maternity leave from K&L, she went through the period of soul-searching that ended when the pasta-making lightbulb went off for her.

“I missed hospitality a lot. I wanted to be somebody who did something. (I wanted) to make something,” she explains.

After nearly two years of experimenting with dried pasta in her laundry room, Ferrazzani landed in her dual storefront space on Lincoln Avenue in Pasadena in November 2017.

Another successful local chef — Christine Moore, the owner of the beloved Little Flower bakery and café — helped Ferrazzani. Moore opened her popular restaurant, the now-shuttered Lincoln, next door and was a part owner of the building.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her (Moore),” Ferrazzani emphasizes. “She’s been a mentor and friend and always encouraged me to trust my instincts with the business. It was very helpful. It can’t be overstated how generous she is with other women in the food business.”

These days, Semolina Artisanal Pasta is a busy wholesale supplier to chefs and restaurants across Los Angeles.

Although dried pasta was Ferrazzani’s original concept, she was persuaded by one of the chefs to produce fresh pasta as well. Matt Molina, whom Ferrazzani met at Pizzeria Mozza when he served as Silverton’s executive chef, made the request.

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“My fresh pasta program is because of Matt,” she says. “Fresh was at his behest.”

It is now 20% of her regular production. Molina moves through 100 pounds of Ferrazzani’s pasta weekly at his restaurant Hippo in Highland Park and Everson Royce Bar in the Arts District.

Tuesday afternoon, she was training Schiffer and Sonnenburg, and the trio were busy extruding fresh linguini for the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Hollywood, The Cloverfield in Santa Monica, Good Clean Fun in Chinatown and Kevin and Kari Irvin’s pop-up Henry Parsons Project in Pasadena. An 85-pound tray of bucatini had already been prepped for Molina’s Hippo.

It all speaks to the vibrant food culture in the area that reveals so many common community connections.

“I just think we have a rich culture of food in Pasadena that I have not been hearing about,” Ferrazzani says.

“Whether it’s a small business manufacturing pasta like mine, or Grist & Toll milling flour down the street or the cobbler shop (Gourmet Cobbler Factory) making those amazing cobblers. There are a lot of really cool mom-and-pop food businesses here that are geared toward delivering great food experiences and great community experiences that people should try.”

On that note, chef Leah Ferrazzani invites Arroyo readers to try her recipe for pasta with salsa di noci and haricots verts.

Semolina Artisanal Pasta 1976-1978 Lincoln Avenue, Pasadena 323-352-8564, semolinapasta.com

PASTA WITH SALSA DI NOCI AND HARICOTS VERTS

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, lightly chopped 1 1/3 cups walnuts 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar salt freshly ground pepper

1 pound green beans, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces, blanched and shocked. 1 pound Semolina Artisanal Pasta

Method

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, mash the garlic cloves in a mortar and pestle with a pinch of salt into a smooth paste. Add the walnuts and mash until creamy. Slowly stir in olive oil until you have a smooth sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste, and then stir in the red wine vinegar for brightness.

When the water is boiling, add your pasta and give a quick stir. Cook until al dente — start checking the pasta at 5 minutes until it is cooked through but still firm. (Artisanal pasta has a wider variation in cook times because we buy smaller quantities of Semolina, and each lot of flour has varying moisture and protein, all of which affect the cook time.) When the pasta is ready, drain, reserving a little pasta water. Add pasta to the salsa di noci and vegetables, adding a little pasta water as needed to help coat. Serve immediately.

FLUFFY AND FLOURLESS Dessert

BY EMILY CHAVEZ

Featuring chocolate chips and cacao powder, this flourless cake is extremely rich in the best way possible. The addition of fluffy whipped coffee, also sometimes called dalgona coffee, lifts an otherwise dense cake to new levels of luxury. Whipped coffee is made simply by whisking together instant coffee, hot water and some sugar. The airy texture is maintained by gently folding it into the batter right before baking. Coffee notes naturally enhance the chocolate flavo, so enjoying a slice with a cup of coffee for an after-dinner dessert is a perfect match.

FLOURLESS WHIPPED COFFEE CHOCOLATE CAKE ACTIVE TIME: 25 MINUTES | TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR, 45 MINUTES YIELDS ONE 8-INCH CAKE

INGREDIENTS

1 CUP SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS 1/2 CUP UNSALTED BUTTER, ROOM TEMPERATURE 3/4 CUP GRANULATED SUGAR 1/4 TEASPOON SALT 2 TEASPOONS INSTANT COFFEE 2 TEASPOONS HOT WATER 3 LARGE EGGS HALF-CUP CACAO POWDER

INSTRUCTIONS

PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 375 DEGREES F. PREPARE THE CAKE PAN BY LIGHTLY GREASING IT AND LINING WITH A PARCHMENT CIRCLE CUT TO SIZE.

WITH AN ELECTRIC MIXER, WHISK TOGETHER THE INSTANT COFFEE, HOT WATER AND 2 TEASPOONS OF THE SUGAR UNTIL IT IS FLUFFY AND HOLDS ITS SHAPE. SET ASIDE.

USE A DOUBLE-BOILER METHOD OR MICROWAVE TO MELT THE BUTTER AND SOFTEN THE CHOCOLATE CHIPS TOGETHER IN ONE BOWL. STIR MIXTURE UNTIL FULLY INCORPORATED.

STIR THE REMAINING SUGAR AND SALT INTO THE BUTTER CHOCOLATE MIXTURE.

ADD EGGS, BEATING UNTIL JUST INCORPORATED.

ADD COCOA POWDER, STIRRING UNTIL JUST COMBINED.

THEN, GENTLY FOLD IN THE FLUFFY INSTANT COFFEE MIXTURE.

SPOON BATTER INTO THE PAN AND BAKE FOR ABOUT 25 MINUTES, UNTIL A THIN CRUST HAS FORMED AND THE INTERNAL CENTER TEMPERATURE REACHES 200 DEGREES.

REMOVE FROM THE OVEN AND LET COOL FOR 5 MINUTES BEFORE REMOVING FROM THE PAN.

Lost in the

JUNGLE JUICE

A MUCH BOOZIER COCKTAIL

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

“The Hard Seltzer Cocktail Book” is for hipsters who love the crack of that slim aluminum can. According to the book, which boasts 55 recipes, at 4% to 6% alcohol, the Lost in the Jungle Juice makes a boozy drink that much boozier.

Get a large dispenser — at least 4 gallons — or an empty cooler and feel free to improvise.

Check out the recipe below for Lost in the Jungle Juice and enjoy!

YIELDS: 30 DRINKS

12 12-ounce citrus-flavored hard seltzer 1 bottle vodka 1 gallon lemonade 1/2 gallon orange juice 1/2 gallon fruit punch 3 oranges, sliced Ice as needed.