If You Can’t Make It to Milan, You Can Still Score A Gold Medal Pasta Dish

If you can’t make it to Milan to catch the Winter Olympics you can still enjoy the flavor of Italy with a pasta dish worthy of a gold medal.

When craving a “lick-the-gloss-off-your-lips” bowl of delish “She” plans a trip to a neighborhood Italian restaurant and orders Spaghetti Carbonara ~even before the Chianti is poured.

Italian restaurants tend to be tiny nooks that rock a cozy Euro-vibe. Old school and so cool “She” loves Il Tinello on NYC’s Upper East Side.  It boasts of a grande wine list, a più grande menu and piú grande di tutti hospitality. Good, Better, Best, ~ Bronze, Silver or Gold; however you rate Italian restaurants Il Tinello, like so many little ristorantes is ready for world class competition.

If scoring a table in the Olympic Village or a neighborhood trattoria isn’t on this week’s to-do- list, here’s an easy hack to make you feel part of the action.. From the comfort of your cozy nook, copying the vibe of a virtual trip to Italy is relatively easy to do.

When “She’s home and in need of Carbonara  “She” raids the kitchen cabinets to grab a big bowl

Then blends :

a box of hot, al dente spaghetti cooked in salted water

with a heaping handful of very crispy pan-fried pancetta

then quickly adds 4 whisked egg yolks that have already been blended with micro-planed Pecorino Romano, and Parmesan cheeses

and mixes the mountain of hot pasta with copious amounts of freshly grated “carbon” black pepper

to finish it’s garnished it with a blizzard of parmesan ~

In less time then it takes an Olympic racer to fly through a series of alpine gates you’ve got a bowl of oh-so delicioso spaghetti carbonara without hopping on a transatlantic flight or getting out of your All-American colored jammies.

Just pour the wine!

Abbondanza my friends, xoxo