About 15 years ago I introduced my parents to the world of long spaghetti. A door which I wish I had never opened. It was an innocent dinner and I was coming home from break in college and they wanted to have a meal together and asked me to bring the noodles. I stopped off at a local italian deli and found extra long spaghetti (about 20"). Ever since then, there is no substitute. For a while, they were able to satiate their pasta lust by driving there. Then they retired to Arizona (and subsequently re-retired to Florida). This has involved me picking up the pasta and shipping it to them at a large cost, doubling the original cost of the spaghetti.
Well, they’re retired and have nothing better to do but complain so I figured that a pasta maker would give them something new to bitch about.
All of that said, I started looking for pasta makers and am not sure about a couple things.
- How hard is it to make spaghetti, especially extra long spaghetti?
- What other equipment would be needed? I’m seeing drying things, but would they be good for extra long?
- I’m not sure if she has a Kitchenaid Mixer or not (there appears to be an attachment).
- Special flour or other atypical ingredients needed?
I make pasta pretty often (once or twice a week). Long spaghetti wouldn’t be any harder than shorter spaghetti, other than being slightly less convenient to work with.
Making it is easy. I have a little hand crank machine. I don’t think you need any other equipment, other than a bowl. I never use a drying rack, and although I have a kitchenaid mixer, I prefer making pasta in a bowl.
“My” recipe (learned from a local restaurant):
2 cups flour (00 is preferred if you can find it, but I never can and just use whatever)
1 egg
7 egg yolks
tbsp or so olive oil
tsp or so salt
Put the flour and salt into a bowl, mix them up, and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and oil to the well and beat them. Gradually incorporate flour into the egg mixture with a fork (and then your hand when it gets too stiff for the fork) until you have incorporated most of the flour and have a nice dough ball. Let it rest for a while (10 minutes to an hour, depending on how much time you have).
Then it’s just a matter of rolling it out. I usually take it to the second thinnest thickness setting on my machine. Run it through the cutters to make spaghetti. 20" spaghetti would be nothing…I’m sure if I really wanted to I could make it three or four feet long, but I’m not sure I get what the point is.
Boil for about a minute or two. Easy peasy.
Thanks a lot! As for the point? They love love love to twirl. No, I don’t get why either. I usually break regular pasta in half before I dunk it in the water anyways.
Any recommendations for the pasta maker?
I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/CucinaPro-150-Imperia-Pasta-Machine/dp/B0001IXA0I
I’m happy with it, but I’ve never used any others, so I may not know what I’m missing 
Thanks again! I’ve ordered that one for 'em. 
At the risk of derailing the thread, has anyone tried using one of these with gluten-free flour? The pre-made rice-flour pastas are okay but expensive.