CLINTON, Wash. — What do you do when you can't find what you're craving? If you're Aurora Echo, you make it yourself.
"I started making pasta only because I had to. I wanted to eat beautiful spinach pasta and it didn't exist," Echo said.
After teaching herself how to make pasta at home and getting great reviews from her kids, others began to take notice.
"After doing that and sharing it with more people and listening to them all tell me that it was the best pasta they ever had and that I should sell it, I finally did it," Echo said.
With no prior experience, the single mom started her own pasta-making business on Whidbey Island called, Wildly Beloved Foods.
"I like to feed people. It's really nurturing and comes naturally to me. And I love food. So this was a way to build a business around that and share it with more people," Echo said.
Her pasta starts with all organic ingredients.
"I started using organic semolina and I found the Italian organic semolina is special. There's something about it, that for taste and texture is just exceptional," said Echo. "It gets mixed in my wonderful machine. It does it all it does the kneading and the mixing. What makes the shape of pasta is the bronze dies that you put on your extruder and I want more."
When she started selling her pasta at local farmers' markets, things really began to come to a boil.
"It's been insane, actually. There are people who said, 'oh, I didn't see you at the farmers market. I looked for your booth.' And I told them, it's probably because I had crowds around because that's what it's been like, it's been bananas," Echo said. "It's just grown really in a way that I could not have imagined in a short period of time."
It started with a craving - but Aurora Echo hopes her passion for pasta inspires others to pursue their own dreams as well.
"I have a why not philosophy. And it served me well," said Echo. "And I encourage other women and people to have that same philosophy that if I can do it, they can all do it."
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