No, I’m not reviewing the film, the musical or the song (which I never liked much when it first came out and which I dislike intensely after exercising to it twice a week for two years at my “Aquacise” classes!). I just thought you might enjoy hearing about my recent attempt at making pasta.

I’m afraid the title is slightly misleading because the closest my mother ever came to making pasta was opening a tin of Heinz spaghetti. Mum was probably typical of most mums in Australia and England during the sixties and early seventies but my friend Sally’s parents were more stylish and “with it” – they cooked real spaghetti. I’ll never forget the time they invited me to a special lunch of real spaghetti… Sally’s family, being modern and expert at fork twirling, finished their meals while my dinner was chased around the plate by my fork until it became cold. Eventually, Mr. Worth (who may have thought I didn’t like Italian cuisine) said, “You don’t have to eat it Sally.” Oh the embarrassment.

Once I had left home to fend for myself in my own kitchen I soon discovered how to boil up dried spaghetti and top it with what I would usually put in a shepherd’s pie (and a tin of tomatoes). And in the privacy of my own home I mastered the technique of actually bringing a laden fork of spaghetti to my mouth. How chic!

Things have moved on in the culinary world and for a good while now, according to the cookery programmes on television, it has become “de rigeur” to make one’s own pasta. On holiday in Florence a few years ago I was awfully tempted by a swanky chrome pasta-making machine in a shop window but I was deterred by the sixty pound price tag and the fact that the machine wouldn’t fit in my Ryan Air cabin luggage. Last year I saw an identical machine in our local Lidl store for only twenty pounds and it has sat on a shelf in my kitchen ever since. Well, I exaggerate – I’ve used it three times.

“What would you like for dinner? You can have shepherd’s pie, cauliflower cheese or lasagne,” I texted my Aussie nephew Michael and his friend Edwin who were on their way from Madrid to stay with us and see all our family in Devon.

At four o’clock in the afternoon I took the pasta machine from the shelf and tried to work out how to attach it to the kitchen table. Chris did the honours while I found a pasta recipe on Google. The recipe called for Italian “00” flour and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found a bag of Sainbury’s “00” plain flour on the back of the top shelf in my cupboards; it didn’t mention Italian but it sounded near enough. I measured out the flour onto the worktop, made a well and added the eggs, salt and olive oil. It was rather dry so I added more oil before kneading the dough and letting it rest for thirty minutes. While it rested I cooked the mince and prepared the tomatoes. Chris made the cheese sauce.

At last the dough was ready, if a tad brown. I cut it into workable pieces and began the lengthy process of rolling them through the machine, reducing the gap between the rollers each time until the pasta dough was thin and elastic – ideally. My dough wasn’t very elastic, or at all elastic. It developed holes and fell to bits. The few bits that made it through to setting “2” were in shreds. I checked the recipe – all done by the book. I tasted the dough. Then I looked at the expiry date on the packet of flour… June 2014. Mamma mia!

“Here I go again,” I thought.

Whilst still around the table after the meal (not a morsel left) I told the young men of my difficulties in making the pasta.

“I only said ‘lasagne’ because I thought it was easy,” laughed Michael.

My, my, how can I resist you?