RICOTTA

She had said that she loves ricotta. At the farmer's market I saw some great looking sheep's milk ricotta at the Dancing Ewe stand, so I decided to make a meal where it would be the star. It started out OK, the cheese was great, we had it and pecorino with honey and lemon. But right before she showed up I broke my pasta roller. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to make things really nice, I was probably trying too hard. I tried to readjust and switched to orecchiette while she was in the elevator.

I also made pork/veal meatballs with ricotta but they dried out by the time I served them. The pasta was rubbery and with all the stress, I forgot to add the ricotta at the end to make it nice and creamy. The salad was OK and the expensive cookies were a nice ending. Sometimes the stars don't align and things just don't work out.