Vivi Lo Gnocco

If chaos were a recipe, mine would call for sawdust, Puccini, and potato starch.

The better part of Saturday was spent making gluten-free sweet potato and white potato gnocchi. Not the kind you buy in a plastic pillow at the grocery store—the real kind. The kind you roll with your own two hands until your wrists complain and your hair smells faintly of potato starch.

I learned this culinary art in Italy, with my beloved brother and sister, in a Italian cooking course (https://letseattheworld.com) where our chef wore an apron that said “La vita è breve, mangia pasta.” (Life is short, eat pasta.) She was not wrong. I brought the gluten free recipe home in my suitcase, along with a very expensive bottle of balsamic gold vinegar, two minor kitchen gadgets, and a pasta-making swagger that emerges only when faced with company. There is a Cooking in Parma completion certificate on my kitchen wall.

Today’s gnocchi was a practice run for September and October, when I will host beloveds here at FoxHaven; first for Italian fiction book club, than for Italian fairy tales Intensive. Both gatherings will feature Italian-style feasting—by which I mean large, loud gatherings that start with antipasti and end with someone arguing over who makes the best tiramisu. (I am still trying to claim that crown from my sister, one espresso-soaked layer at a time.)

Meanwhile, my house is a construction site disguised as a home or a retreat center. We will have new floors (radiant heat—my toes will be grateful come January), a new age-in-place bathroom, and—because I believe in luxury in the wild—an outdoor flush toilet and hot water shower. Yes, you read that right: a spa experience, but with forest and squirrels.

At the moment, there is nowhere on the lower level of the house that isn’t covered in drop cloth or sawdust, and my kitchen table is oftentimes buried under a precarious pile of recipe printouts. The retreat menus have to include vegetarian, nut-free, onion-free, gluten-free, and pork-free. Which is to say, I’m cooking with both hands tied behind my back, but still determined to make the kind of food that makes people close their eyes after the first bite. Food allergies and preferences are honoured here—joy is never served at the expense of anyone’s well being. Besides, this all tests my culinary adaptability.

There’s also the small matter of an aria. Yes, there is a distinct possibility that, through the trees during our autumn gatherings, we may hear a live operatic aria. (This is not a metaphor. This is FoxHaven!)

So here I am: apron on, rolling gnocchi like a woman possessed, while sawdust drifts up the stairs, and the contractor calls again, to cheerfully announce yet another delay in the bathroom’s completion. I wonder if Verdi’s ghost will approve of gluten-free pasta or an assertive aria directed at a contractor.

It’s a mess, but it’s the best kind of mess—the kind that promises something wonderful is coming. And until then, I will keep making gnocchi in my test kitchen, trying recipes for gluten free ravoli, simmering sauces without onions or pork, feeding friends both the wins and the loses, and setting the stage for joy.

Because in this house, pasta isn’t just food. It’s a declaration: “life is short, eat together—loudly.” And yes, Sharon, there will be white table linens!

The dinner table, after all, is the centre of the world. It is where stories are told, where laughter drowns out sorrow, where hands reach across plates not just for the bread, but for each other. At its best, it is proof that no matter the chaos of renovations, the drip of a leaky shower head, or the sawdust in the soup, joy can always be served—hot, generous, and with a side of second helpings.

In the fairy tale version of this story, the aria hits its high note just as we lift our glasses, the forest goes still, and everyone forgets the chaos that got us here. For a moment, it’s just FoxHaven, the pasta, and the promise that joy—like gnocchi—tastes better when it’s made by hand and heart.

And if that’s not the start of an Italian fairy tale, I don’t know what is.