continue …being told that "today we are going to have gnocchi" always meant a special day. Gnocchi were to be homemade (only the rare, perverted individual bought them ready made), and no happy home could be without the proper, ungainly tool, in aluminum or some other rough metal, expressly for the purpose, the potato masher. My entire childhood was spent "creating" potato gnocchi, with the grater or a fork. That was my job. I now know that the bumps and grooves made on the gnocchi are necessary to create a surface to which the sauce may cling, but, at the time, I thought it was a game.
The gnocchi must be light and spongy; therefore, attention must be paid to the addition of flour, a little at a time, please. Potato gnocchi, like pasta and tomato sauce, and rice stuffed tomatoes are on the hit parade of my favorite dishes. If you don’t know how to prepare them and want to learn, write to me. I won't answer; I will come in person to your home and make them. Increasing even by one, the worshipper of gnocchi, would procure for me an enormous indulgence in the afterlife, in the paradise of the gluttonous where, from immense, steaming cauldrons, buxom, half dressed maidens eternally "skim" gnocchi onto exaggeratedly large plates.

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