Riffing on the Carbonara

One of my great guilty pleasures is preparing, cooking, and eating Spaghetti alla Carbonara. It is a fundamentally easy dish with minimal preparation, but is nonetheless fresh and creamy and delicious every time. My daughter loves it, and so it could easily slide into a staple position at dinnertime. It also works quite well as a Primi, I would think especially if it precedes fish or lamb or something less substantive.

But to make it a staple is a problem. First of all, no matter how one riffs on the carbonara, it is what it is: a pound of pasta soaked in five different kinds of fat. Consider the base sauce that I use: cubed pancetta crisped in olive oil into which I add sliced garlic before throwing in half a cup of wine. The noodles are coated in a mixture that begins with Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheese, to which I add anywhere from 2-4 eggs depending on whether I am excluding whites (general rule: 1 full egg, and then either 1 more, or 2-3 yolks more). So, to review, noodles coated in uncooked eggs and unpasteurized cheese into which I pour pig fat and olive oil. The healthiest part of this meal, aside from the handful of chopped parsley I toss in at the end, is either the fried garlic or the cheap Italian white wine that informs the sauce base.

So, not so good. At least, not so good for the heart and arteries and blood pressure. The whole meal strikes me as some kind of sodium and cholesterol conspiracy designed by pharmaceutical companies who really really really want to sell us those fancy drugs to make our numbers turn out right. But they won't get me. I cut the cholesterol by cooking with a glass of Dubonnet or Noilly Prat on ice, having a Burgundy-style pinot noir with the wine, and finishing with either a second glass of wine or a really nice bourbon. I figure that'll clean out the arteries and lower the blood pressure without resorting to a handful of pills. And if not, the booze'll get me before the cholesterol does.