Cooking with Alessandra

Specialties

Cooking is a wonderfully social activity. My memories of getting flour on my hands with my grandmother while making ravioli from scratch or seeing her smile as she helped me fill the tortellini or prepar the sauce for fettuccine – those are the memories that have sustained me through a lifetime of loving to cook. It’s those types of feelings I want to share in my classes – traditional recipes prepared in classic ways but in a warm environment where making friendships is just as important as making food.

The classes I prepare and teach are inspired directly from my grandmother’s hands and heart and are held in my own cucina in the East Village of Des Moines. Fettuccine, lasagna, ravioli, cannelloni, tortellini, tortelloni, pappardelle, all made from scratch and filled or prepared in the most traditional way, but with a bit of imagination, could be deliciously reinvented without missing their originality!

Come to the classes, meet new wonderful food-​lovers, bring your own wine and let’s celebrate love for food, life and new friends!

Public classes are $ 45.00 per person and cover a variety of foods and styles listed below.

I also offer private classes for $ 50.00 per class, per person. Minimum 10 people/​Maximum 18 people

Meet the Business Owner

Alessandra M.

Business Owner

I born in Italy on a warm day in July. I believe on that particular day, the sun was high in the sky, big and full of flour, eggs, tomatoes and olives. The air had the aroma of basil, rosemary, garlic and, I suspect, that my mum took me on her arms, went out on the sun, breathed deeply this air and then she kissed me. I’m sure about all that because since that moment I had the curiosity, the passion and the infinite love to cook.

That passion doesn’t just stay in me, I have an unstoppable desire to share it with others. That’s why I set up my cucina to be a place of learning and curiosity and, of course, mouthwatering food. The dishes I prepare and teach could be the most traditional but they always include the key ingredients of imagination and originality.

I’ve traveled all over the world and have found that nothing brings people together like food. We start with what our parents and family made for us and then we grow with the food that we discover, collecting tastes and flavors