“Everyone else here is Mormon,” I realized as the instructor oriented us into the cooking class.

My boyfriend and I took positions at the end of the counter, white aprons tied around our waists and necks. A bored assistant stood callously off to the side as the chef explained we would be making three different kinds of gnocchi and sauces, and that we would be given instructions and recipes to take home with us, with a ten per cent discount if we wanted to purchase any supplies while we were there.

I surveyed the room as he spoke. Mike and I were the only gay people in the room (well, so far as I knew). To our right stood a blonde and smiling couple in their mid-20s, and to our left a family unit of great-grandmother (in her 60s), grandmother (in her 40s), and two blonde moms (in their young 20s), one of them with a newborn infant wrapped tightly against her chest. The multi-generational Mormon women made conversation about how they could make delicious gnocchi for Sunday dinner the following week, and muttered about how impressed their husbands would be. The younger couple made eyes at each other from time to time, clearly in love. I kept waiting to see if any of them would give us errant glances for, well, for being gay, but they barely seemed to take notice of us, and I started to relax.

I become hyper-aware in situations like this. Something as simple as walking down the  street holding hands with my boyfriend, I’m never quite sure how civilians and pedestrians will treat us, and it can get more uncomfortable in contained situations like this.

“Which one of you does the cooking?” the chef asked the Mormon couple, and the wife raised her hand with a smile. “And how about for you two?” he indicated to us, and Mike rose his hand. This question definitely made it apparent that we were a couple, but again no one seemed to react, positively or negatively. We were just two people in the class, nothing making us stand out. It felt nice to just blend into the surroundings.

As the chef helped us carefully mix, set, and roll out our three different gnocchi noodles (one standard potato, one a semolina flour base, and one a ricotta base), teaching us how to roll them into ridged noodles and cut them into pieces, we all made small talk. All four of the female relatives were housewives whose husbands worked, and they were all Mormon, and the young couple were both students in med school with no children. I admired the 6-week old baby (with the adorable name of Florence) and talked about my children. We asked the couples how they met, and they asked how we met, and how long we had been together.

Soon we broke into teams, half of the group cooking the various types of gnocchi while the other half made the sauces. Some noodles went into the oven to be baked while the others were dropped into hot water, cooked only for 2-3 minutes until the noodles rose to the top of the water. Pans were coated with oil, goat cheese was blended, butter was browned and mixed with chopped sage, olives were chopped, shallots and garlic were minced and blended, and then three kinds of sauces were blended with three different noodles, and soon all eight of us stood around with full places of heavy, salty, starchy pastas, all with buttery, thick, oily, salty sauces. We moaned over the deliciousness of it all, and complained about how full we were, and then went back for more food and moaned some more.

When the class ended, we left with handshakes and ‘hope to see you again at another class sometime’s, and well wishes, and everyone had smiles on their faces. Baby Florence was packed up, we all bought gnocchi-making utensils, and everyone walked their separate ways.

As I walked away, my belly far too full with rich food at 9 pm at night, I anticipated late night stomach aches and a world where I would no longer automatically expect people to be ugly about me being gay and in a gay relationship. It all felt as difficult and complicated as, well, carefully making gnocchi. It was delicate and tender, but in the end, it tasted rich and delicious.