One of the dangers of being a food editor is falling desperately in love.

It's been five years since the Association of Food Journalists had its annual meeting in Kansas City, Mo. The air was hot, and humidity hung like a shroud, though I reminded myself of what my college boyfriend from Indiana used to say: "That's what makes the corn grow." But it was cool and classy inside Lidia's Kansas City, where the chef and her KC crew had prepared the AFJ board a wonderful meal.

Bill Wade, Post-Gazette TOP: Lidia Bastianich of Lidia's Pittsbrugh restaurant in the Strip District removes Istrian Wedding Pillows from boiling water and transfers them to a pan to be sauteed in butter. BOTTOM: Ready to be served. Click photos for larger image. More information If you would like to taste Lidia's Wedding Pillows, call the restaurant to see when they will be featured in the pasta-tasting menu, 412-552-0150.

At that time, I didn't know Lidia Bastianich from a cake of salt, but that September night gave me a yearning for a dish I'll never forget: Istrian Wedding Pillows.

Oh, I tried to put them out of my mind, pushing them to the back burner of unrequited love, so to speak. It didn't work.

One of the advantages of being a food editor is that, with a little help from chefs like Lidia, we give in to our obsessions. And give in I did.

In March, Lidia was in town, visiting her Strip District restaurant, Lidia's Pittsburgh, and she gave me both a cooking lesson and another taste test. I've been screwing up my courage ever since. As the clock ticked toward my retirement at the end of this month, the time was now.

I have a new pasta attachment to my KitchenAid, so I figured I was home free, but then I discovered from Lidia that a good old rolling pin (she said some veteran cooks rolled with a wooden dowel) or a magical pasta machine was better. I settled on the latter (which cost $32 at Pennsylvania Macaroni in the Strip, though there were both more expensive and cheaper ones).

Last week, I set out to imitate, if not duplicate, the star chef's recipe.

Be warned: What Lidia, the James Beard Chef of the Year in 2002, makes look easy, a pasta newbie like me turns into so many sticky balls of dough.

In her recipe, she gives two options for mixing. Because I was making Wedding Pillows when I should have been laying my head down on one, I opted to use my KitchenAid. Wrong. I should have done it like the Italian nonnas from time immemorial and plopped the flour on the counter and worked in as much flour as "fit." In the mixer, I kept adding water, teaspoon by teaspoon, to form a dough. Then I had to work in additional flour as I kneaded so it wasn't sticky. Looking at the bright spot, I did have lots of dough.

Panic didn't set in until I opened the instruction book for the Imperia pasta maker. Aside from a little Latin in high school, I'm no language whiz, so when I opened the booklet to read what I took to be Italian, I was lost. When I frantically paged to the back of the booklet, ending with what I recognized as Chinese characters but found no English instructions, I wondered if I should simply give up. One set looked to be Arabic.

Once I'd calmed down, I located the King's English in the middle of the booklet and began to read about "How to Prepare Imperia for Use": Fasten the machine to a table inserting the special clamp in the slot in the side of the machine, then screw it to the edge of the table. At last I could actually do something that Lidia recommended, which was to use a high surface to avoid backaches -- we have a nice island that my neighbor Elaine helped me pick out.

The instructions continued: Put a layer of dough between the rollers and turn the handle. This way you will obtain a first sheet [of dough] which will have to be passed through several times to thoroughly clean all the points [on the machine] to which access by hand is impossible. (Of course, this sheet will have to be thrown away.)

Thus, after throwing out a third of the dough, I ended up with lots of leftover filling.

You may not know this, but pasta machines are right-handed. I am not.

When Lidia was giving me her cooking lesson, then-executive chef Craig Richards was on hand to help. My mechanic/husband/sous-chef, however, was commiserating with his friend Bill at a Pirates game.

Although I could have used Ace to catch the pasta spewing from the machine, I had to go it alone, lefty or not. I hung in there, though, and I'm going to keep practicing, because if Ace loves them as much as I do, maybe he'll renew our marriage contract for another 25.

One of the sublime joys of Lidia's Wedding Pillows is that they are whisper-thin -- mine were thicker. At times, though, my dough looked like the thinnest slice of Alpine Lace cheese.

Speaking of cheese, shaving a soft cheese like fontina is the biblical equivalent of trying to ride the camel through the eye of a needle. Messy. (Whole Foods has a shredder. Or storing the cheese for several minutes in the freezer before I attempted shredding might have helped.)

I did OK at soaking the golden raisins in Puerto Rican rum, though there was a moment when I thought I'd have to switch to regular raisins, which I hate. It's hard to locate anything, as Ace is packing up for our move to the Pacific Northwest, and everything I need is either packed or hidden under the debris of a lifetime.

I did lighten the moving van's load in the course of creating Wedding Pillows. I threw out my baby Cuisinart. The company should be ashamed to put its legendary name on a piece of junk like those miniature machines, whose plastic bowl broke the third time I used it. This time it got into an altercation with the Parmigiano Reggiano, and the cheese won. After the machine went into the garbage can, I turned to my faithful Oster blender -- so old that it's harvest gold. It did the job.

Watching Lidia place the delicious filling on her pasta stuck in my mind, though I didn't have her experience in guessing the spacing. So I ended up lightly marking the circle where the filling would go with the cookie cutter. She said the leftovers were to be used in soup but, frugal Midwesterner that I am, I cheated and ran some of the extras through the machine again.

I wouldn't recommend it, though. The dough became rather tough and the pillows were prone to leaks. About a half-dozen of my pillows looked perfect, despite my inexperience.

After a long evening of work (I barely got the kitchen cleaned before Ace got home from the game), I had 21 Wedding Pillows, each with its own personality.

Like children, no two were alike, but we loved them all.

PG tested

Istrian Wedding Pillows (Krafi)

Dough:

• 3 whole eggs, plus 1 yolk
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 2 1/2 cups flour

Filling:

• 1/2 cup golden raisins
  
• 2 tablespoons dark rum
  
• 2 eggs, beaten with a pinch of salt
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
  
• 3/4 pound fontina cheese, shredded
  
• 1/4 pound Parmigiano Reggiano, freshly grated
  
• 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
  
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest, grated
  
• 1/2 teaspoon orange zest, grated
  
• 1/4 teaspoon of clove powder
  
• 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg

Dough: Beat the eggs, yolk and salt well. Sift the flour, forming a mound, and make a well in the center. Add the eggs and mix with your fingers until the dough comes together. Knead until soft and pliable, adding flour, 1 teaspoon at a time if the dough feels sticky. Add water, 1 teaspoon at a time, if the dough is dry and crumbly. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, or use an electric mixer. (If you use a mixer, beat the eggs and salt together and alternately add small amounts of flour and water until the proper consistency is reached.) Cover with plastic wrap, and let the dough rest while preparing stuffing.

Filling: Toss the raisins in the rum. Let them stand, tossing once or twice, until the raisins absorb most of the rum, 20 to 30 minutes.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar. Add the fontina, Parmigiano Reggiano and bread crumbs, mixing well. Add the remaining ingredients and combine well, using your hands. Cover and set aside.

Assembling: Divide the dough into three parts and roll out each part to form a rectangle about 1/16-inch thick. (If using a pasta machine, pass the dough through successively narrower openings, ending with the next-to-thinnest setting.) Keep the remaining dough covered while working each portion. Set the rolled dough on a work surface with the long side facing you, and spoon the filling onto the upper (farthest) half, by the tablespoonful, at 3-inch intervals. Lightly moisten the dough with water along the edges and around the mounds of filling. Fold the unfilled bottom half of dough over the top, aligning the borders, and press around the mounds and along the edges to seal.

Using a 2 3/4-inch round cookie cutter, stamp out the pillows. Press each filled portion lightly to fill the air pockets with stuffing, check the edges to be sure they are completely sealed, and set them in a large pot of salted water until al dente but cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes.

To serve: Drain and toss with 2/3 cup melted unsalted butter. Sprinkle liberally with grated Parmigiano Reggiano and serve with freshly ground pepper and additional Parmigiano Reggiano.

Makes 8 servings.