Maya and I got up early this morning. While Noah slouched around in his tartan pyjamas watching the cricket highlights, we made pasta for today’s lunch.

Most of the tray is filled with ‘sedani rigati’, ridged and slightly curved tubes that are a little larger than maccheroni. ‘Sedani’ comes from the word for celery. We used what little dough was left —the bits that wouldn’t squeeze through the bronze die— to make a few ‘malloreddus’, a kind of ridged pasta from Sardinia reminiscent of gnocchi but pure pasta dough. The ragù has been cooking slowly for four hours now and the house smells like home. It’s keeping warm in the pot ready for us to serve with a mountain of Parmesan.