Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1050416
121 grandma," she says. "e way I see it, every- thing has already been done, so why not just stick with what we know works—what's fresh, local, and in season." A perfect example of that might be her caserecce, a traditional Sicilian pasta rolled from each end like a tiny scroll. Glantz makes it green, using local vegetables that change with the seasons—spinach, arugula, or wild nettles, depending on what the farms are bringing in. e dough is a base of La Milanaise organic non- GMO semolina flour from Quebec and Maine Grains organic whole wheat flour. "For me, this is the pasta that represents my community—my farmers in West Gloucester, Essex, and Topsfield," says Glantz, noting that caserecce means "home" in Italian. Late September is wild nettle season. Also known as stinging nettles, the bright-green, high- ly nutritious leaves for Glantz's pasta come from Cedar Rock Gardens in West Gloucester, where they grow wild all around the edges of cultivated land. ey are called stinging nettles because tiny hairs on the stems and leaves sting when you touch them (as this writer can attest first- hand). While most instructions suggest wearing gloves when preparing nettles (once they are blanched, they can no longer sting, but getting them to that point takes time), Glantz plunges her bare hands into the greens. She's heard it might ward off arthritis, plus she's tough. e fresh caserecce flies out of the case fast, but the dried version is usually available into the winter, thanks to her move to a new storefront right on Main Street a few months back that more than doubled her space, enabling her more room to make dried pasta. Just a stone's throw from the tiny original space that gave the business its name—Pastaio via corta means "pasta maker on a short street"—the new store- front with wide windows has a nice spot for hanging out and features displays with a care- fully curated array of artisanal products that are hard to get stateside. Old World pasta runs in Glantz's blood. Her great-great-grandmother arrived in the United States in the early 1900s with her pasta board strapped to her back. On a shelf over Glantz's workbench rests a picture of her great-grand- parents, along with a variety of artisanal tools for hand-shaping pasta that were all hand- crafted by experts, including an intricate stamp Danielle Glantz's passion is rustic Italian cooking. She has perfected the art of pasta making at her shop in Gloucester.