First of all, they did not stick where they were supposed to, and they did stick where they weren't supposed to - like on the board I had them on. I had to press them together in my hand and add flour where they broke apart.

The recipe on the show had a bit of oil in the pasta (not much), but I omit this because for me it makes the dough too stretchy, and it is more difficult to handle long sheets.

I've been on HGTV a few times and can tell you first hand that the way things get demonstrated on this type of show is not necessarily the way they are done in real life or even the way they were done while being demonstrated due to editing in the interest of the show flowing smoothly.

Often during a multi step procedure you use a piece of whatever you are demonstrating that you prepared in advance and brought with you so unless you saw the person use the pasta sheet directly come from being rolled to being used without there being a single break in the shot its entirely possible its not the same piece of pasta.

(There was NO WAY anyone was going to be able to make the wallpaper I had created for an ASID Showcase House winner that I demoed on the Kitty Bartholomew show based on what was shown in the end. Totally crazy to even bother showing it.)

There were other pieces of pasta cut for fettucine that were shown being dried later on in the show, but they never showed the pasta being dried for the tortellini, even though she had a rack set up for that purpose. If that is a necessary step, then they should at least mention it if they do not demonstrate it, and the equipment was set up to demonstrate it. The dough requires a resting period of a minimum of 30 minutes after mixing and before putting it through the pasta machine, and that period of resting was mentioned enough though it was not demonstrated.

Such a shame to do demos that aren't actually going to work in real life!!

They have 00 flour at Whole Foods. And Amazon.

Thanks! I'll look for the 00 flour at WF. There are two fairly close to me - one in Venice and one in El Segundo. However, I wonder if I will like it or if it is really necessary.

This happens to us often. Perfectly happy with our methods and recipe. Then we see something that might ever so slightly 'improve' but total failures. Always worth a try because that is how we do learn and 'improve'.

Some are better teachers on the cooking shows. Give the right information and mention how most ovens are radically different, etc. "look out for this and that".

Adjust salt and seasonings if seems too much...use less of this if you palate is sensitive....

I'll look out for that episode but don't run across her that often.

I keep thinking about making ravioli but my confidence in fillings and procrastination have left me making only egg noodles. But I have enough practice with the noodles to expect some success. I have worked with partial 00 flour with bread flour or bread flour alone. At first I was creating slightly sticky sheets and noodles, but after adding much larger dustings of flour and refolding sheets to incorporate that flour and then add more for thinner sheets, I began to get sheets that didn't stick to itself as it piled up below my Marcato machine. Before extra flour, I always attempted to keep sheets short enough to keep a hand on each end while my non existent third hand cranked or held the sheet = } .

Lars: I know that you already have extensive experience in this area. However, I am under the impression that 00 flour absorbs more water than regular flour. I thought that was why one is supposed to rest and cool the dough for a couple hours. So I would think that using 00 flour would have absorbed more liquid and your sheets would have been drier. In any case, add more flour if not enough, and just like bread making, if the dough doesn't act as expected, add more flour or liquid and check again. I know that you knew that.

BTW, Bob's Red Mill makes semolina flour that can often be found in the nicer stores.

I make ravioli /all pasta with AP flour - 100g for 1 egg - don't know what that is in cups. I just add salt, no oil. I don't bother drying it. I imagine that spraying the pasta would put water where you don't want it. that could make it sticky. I do it like Lars. Just rub it with a little water.

I find ravioli a lot easier to make than tortellini, and so I will stick with that and give up on tortellini. I think I like ravioli better anyway, but thought I would give tortellini a try. I've never had problems with ravioli, but I tend to make them a bit on the large side, and on the show, they were making them very small, which of course is more work, and so I'll continue making them the regular size. The tortellini they made were also very small.

Another thing Martha did on the show (which I saw again yesterday) was mispronounce pappardelle - she pronounced it "Papparadelle", adding another syllable to it. Her guest kept pronouncing it correctly, and she continued to mispronounce it. I'm convinced that she does not speak Italian!

Chas, all pasta dough has to rest for at least half an hour after mixing the egg and flour, to give the flour time to hydrate. I also do not allow sheets to pile up and generally dry them on a broomstick. Martha was using a stand-up wooden clothes rack for drying hers.