Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Lately I have been getting to the nitty-gritty of authentic Italian cooking. Now, I am nowhere near even remotely close to being Italian in any way, so I wouldn't dare tout my methods as "legit." You can go to someone's Italian grandmother for that.

Nonetheless, I discovered that using butter and cream on pasta is strictly an American thing, and I can't say I'm surprised (what don't Americans put butter on?).This means that heavenly, creamy spaghetti alla Carbonara - a dish I have been enjoying my entire life - does not actually contain cream; rather, it is thickened with eggs.

Image 1. Dat bacon tho

Needless to say, I was intrigued.

And thus began my quest to make (semi-)authentic Spaghetti alla Carbonara.

First you boil some water with enough salt to put the Mediterranean sea to shame.

Next, fry up some bacon. If you were a real Italian, you would use pancetta, but to be completely honest I don't know anything about pancetta other than that it is a pork product and you pronounce the "c" like "ch." So bacon it is! I used an entire package of Oscar Mayer center cut bacon.

Image 2. The smell of sizzling bacon is really something else.

While that's sizzling away, chop up four or five cloves of garlic and let that cook in the bacon grease.

Image 3. The smell of sizzling bacon and garlic is even better.

When the salty salt water comes to a boil, add your spaghetti and cook al dente. Drain the pasta and dump it back in the pot.

Take the cooked bacon-garlic concoction and toss it with the pasta so that the delicious greasiness can mingle with the firm yet tender pasta. I may or may not have poured some bacon grease in the pasta. Don't feel ashamed. Bacon is glorious.

Image 4. I can't think of anything to write here.

Toss with liberal amounts of olive oil and make sure the pasta stays warm.

Here comes the fun part - in a separate bowl, whisk two eggs and some grated Parmesan cheese. Take the pot off the heat and slowly whisk in the egg-cheese mixture. At this point, it is very important that the pasta be hot but not sizzling, because you want the egg to be fully cooked and coating the pasta at the same time. Too cool and you will get pasta in raw egg, too warm and you will get pasta with scrambled eggs (which now that I think about it, sounds like a pretty amazing breakfast idea).

Image 5. It looks like you're making an omelet but you're not.

Crack some black pepper over it, sprinkle some parsley (fresh if you have it; all I had was dry), and you're done.

Image 6. Nomz

How are Italians not fat if they eat pasta day in and day out?

How do Italians with Celiac's disease survive? Maybe they all died out via natural selection because of their explosive diarrhea and stomach pains and people just assumed they had dysentery or something. There's no way an Italian would be able to sustain a gluten-free diet without eventually caving to the aroma of all things Italian and pooping their brains out. Just no way.

Image 7. I mean seriously though, how can you resist this

These are the thoughts that go through my head as I'm eating dinner...and as far as I know I maintain the only food blog in existence that references defecation. I apologize. Here are some photos of kittens to make up for this indecency.

Until next time, friends.