Flour, eggs and Irma.

In today's Freep, columnist Susan Ager has a quirky yet heartwarming human interest story about Irma Morri, an 80-year-old widow from San Marino who has worked for the past 35 years making authentic Italian pasta from scratch at Giovanni's Ristorante in Detroit. I love slice-of-life tales like Irma's, and the details Ager captures of life in the kitchen make this tale a particularly tasty one. Reading about Irma's time-honored creations makes me want to hop in the car and head over to Giovanni's for dinner, and one of these days I just might do so. Though culinary artisans of Irma's caliber are in shrinking supply nowadays, the tradition she has kept up at Giovanni's seems assured of continued life: as the Freep reports, Irma now has a couple young apprentices. Even if the trainees manage to absorb all their teacher's knowledge, Giovanni's probably won't be the same without Irma. Mangiate bene! AMDG.