Several years ago, on vacation in Sicily, I took a daylong cooking class with Anna Tasca Lanza, the aristocratic proprietor of Regaleali, a venerable wine estate. I still recall one of the pasta dishes she made by tossing wild mustard greens with penne and the fresh sheep's-milk ricotta made on the premises.
When I got home and tried to duplicate it, I didn't like the results because our domestic ricotta was so different. Sicilian ricotta, thinned with some of the pasta water, produced a creamy sauce with a creme fraiche taste. American ricotta was too sweet and grainy.
Recently I made that recipe again, using a new cow's-milk ricotta from Sonoma County's Bellwether Farms. The dish tasted almost as if the Marchesa Tasca Lanza herself had made it.
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