Ladies who lunch (at Babbo).

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Marcia and I met for a ladies' lunch at Babbo. It was a rainy Friday afternoon, and so a glass of red wine seemed very much in order. No doubt you agree. I have no idea what the wine was, as the bartender poured me something based on a string of somewhat silly adjectives (I know nothing about Italian wine), but, yum.

We shared two appetizers to start with, both crazy seasonal and yet perfectly Babbo-esque. Strong flavors marked by high acid and spice, and a mix of textures to delight the palate. First up, a market bean milanese. The duck egg was the crispy part, and it sat atop a pile of green and white beans - a mix of string and flat - tossed in a tangy vinaigrette. A smattering of cheese grounded the dish with a bit of dirty, earthy, aged flavor.

Second, some teeny fairy tale eggplant grilled and tossed with a corn dressing and served atop a piece of grilled bread. The sweet corn popped against the creamy, smoky eggplant and the crunchy bread. I could have eaten ten of these.

My main was guinea hen alla cacciatore. A very tradition preparation (ridiculous rich tomato-and-veg sauce, a slight amount of heat), save for the shaved green onions on top. The peppery bite was welcome against the rich, dark meat. It reminded me that it was still lunch, and I had miles to go before it was time to sleep.

As we went to leave the restaurant, we opened the door to a complete and total downpour. The hostess let us know that it would rain on and off all afternoon, and said she hoped we had umbrellas. We did, and it did, but I hardly noticed a thing. I was too busy dreaming of eggplant.

Getting outdoorsy.

Last Monday, I was lucky enough to pay a visit to Terroir's (an East Village wine bar) new outpost on the High Line. Their little patch of awesome sits over 15th Street, right where the park passes under the upper floors of Chelsea Market, and consists of a teeny shipping container (from whence food and drink are served) and rows of comfy picnic tables (where said food and drink are consumed).

You're outside, so wine (like this delightful French rose) comes in little plastic tumblers. There's also beer, but no cocktails - for gin or whiskey, you're going to have to head elsewhere. (Given how awesome the vino is, though, you shouldn't bother. Terroir is known for its perfectly curated lists.)

The plates are small and packed with flavor. On the (vehement) recommendation of our waiter, I tried the fried lamb sausage, which packed whole sage leaves between meat and thin, crisp crust. The sausage itself was juicy and robustly flavored - possibly even a little too salty, until I squeezed the lemon over the whole thing, which made everything right again. Smartypants restaurants with their functional garnishes.

My second dish was the farro salad, which I seriously enjoyed. It was super satisfying in the way that only something delicious and healthy can be. It was perfectly tender, dotted with shaved white onion and chopped sugar snap peas, and dressed with mint, olive oil, salt, and pepper. This is one I'll be working on recreating awfully soon, hopefully with accompanying sunset.

Terroir At The Porch
The High Line
10th Avenue at 15th Street

In the neighborhood.

When I moved to the Upper East Side, it wasn't because the neighborhood was a happening hot spot. I needed a place in a hurry, and a friend's cousin was subletting her super-cheap studio. It seemed like kismet, and I moved in a week after I first visited the place. Seven years and two apartments later, I'm still here - mostly because it's a ridiculously easy commute (to work, to the East Village, you name it) and pretty cheap, in Manhattan terms. But, of late, it's turning into a halfway exciting place for food and drink, too.

Spigolo has been a big part of the neighborhood's self-improvement plan. It opened a few years back, and has been serving delicious Italian food to standing room only crowds ever since. Every time I visit, I realize I don't go often enough.

On my most recent trip, I started with a house cocktail, the Bulleit Burlesque. A mixture of rye, cherry and ginger (I honestly can't remember the exact ingredients), it was a spicy take on a Manhattan - so of course I loved it.

For my starter, I ordered Spigolo's take on the Caesar, a half head of romaine topped with anchovy dressing, Parmesan and piping hot, lightly fried rock shrimp. I loved the flavors in this, but it was a bit overdressed. I ended up pushing about half the sauce to the side - but nothing could ruin the contrast of the plump, toasty shrimp with the crisp, cold lettuce.

On my insistence, Kyle and I split an order of the Romano potatoes. From what I can tell, these bad boys are boiled, then smashed, coated with a bit of cheese and salt, and crisped on the grill. They are, in a word, ridiculous.

I was lucky enough to visit early in the evening, before the restaurant sold out of their house-made chicken and broccoli rabe sausage, which was split, grilled and served on top of a cold farro salad. The sausage - unlike so much chicken sausage - was moist, flavorful and a perfect texture. And the salad was a little creamy and peppered with roasted tomatoes and cold cucumber. So, as you can imagine: I loved it.

Dessert at Spigolo is particularly good - the co-owner is also the pastry chef, and she does a fantastic job. My favorite of the two we sampled last week was the sticky toffee bread pudding. I'd even go so far as to say that the sticky toffee sauce was as good as my own, and I loved the whipped cream/mascarpone combination that topped things off. (So much so that I might copy it.)

Over the next few weeks, I'll be offering up a few more reasons why the Upper East Side isn't seeming like such a bad place to be these days. Stay tuned! In the meantime, get your butts to Spigolo before they take that bread pudding off the menu.

Spigolo
1561 Second Avenue
Between 81st and 82nd Streets
212.744.1100

Feasting.

On my last night in Austin, Louisa invited our friends Joel and Ted over for dinner. We decided it would be the perfect opportunity for some Italian-style feasting. Joel agreed to make a salad and bruschetta, and we agreed to make a pasta, a meat, and a vegetable side. The games had begun.

For the meat course - well, actually, for all of our dishes - Louisa and I took inspiration from one of my very favorite places, Frankies Spuntino. (Every recipe mentioned here can be found in their cookbook.) Their rib eye roast is a garlicky delight, and they serve it sliced cold. Make-ahead steak with garlic and herbs? Sold.

We bought a 2 1/2 pound rib eye roast, had it deboned, and rubbed it all over with garlic, parsley and thyme. We let it hang out in the fridge for 24 hours, then roasted it slowly in the oven, where it browned gorgeously all over and rendered just the tiniest amount of fat. I resisted temptation and popped that baby back in the fridge, where it stayed for another five or six hours.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Louisa worked her magic on a sweet and sour baked eggplant dish. See, what you do is make a caramel in the bottom of a sauce pan, then deglaze it with vinegar. In go the hand-crushed tomatoes - along with a healthy amount of salt and garlic - to simmer for half an hour.

In the meantime, Louisa roasted some sliced eggplant. We then layered the eggplant with the sauce (saving some of it for pouring later) and roasted it again. Before we served it, we topped the whole thing with ricotta salata and mint. It's eggplant parmesan re-imagined for summer, folks. (And, apparently, Sicilian.)

For the pasta course, I made Frankies justly famous fresh pasta (we used penne) with hot sausage, browned butter and sage. It was damn good, as always.

And then, then - we sliced the roast. Pink all the way through, redolent of herbs and garlic, and a worthy companion to the eggplant. Add in Joel's delicious salad (dressed with his new obsession, white balsamic) and amazing bruschetta with grilled kale and tomatoes, and it's clear. This is how you do summer, Italian-style, kids.

Tweaking a classic.

My name is Meg, and I'm addicted to Italian food.

If you are even a casual reader of my blog, you probably already knew that. I mean, I'm an omnivore. I love Vietnamese, Chinese (especially bad, Americanized Chinese - I am half-Jewish, after all), French (obviously), Japanese, Cuban, Mexican (especially taqueria-style eats), Spanish, molecular...you name it, I probably really enjoy it.

But when it comes to what I'm likely to cook at home, Italian frequently seems to win the day. I think it's likely the result of its emphasis on fresh ingredients (especially vegetables) and my ability to look at pretty much anything and go, "That would be great with some olive oil and garlic." Whatever the reason, Italian - or, at least, Italian-inspired - is often on the menu chez Queenie.

So when I wound up with a package of hot pork sausage a week or so ago, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it: make some sausage and peppers. I turned to my current Italian-American gurus, the Frankies. Yes, I know. You've heard me mention them before. Tough noogies.

The Frankies make their classic sausage and peppers with sweet sausage, and serve it on polenta. I only had hot sausage, but I added some basil from my windowsill garden to sweeten things up. And, since I'm trying to cut back on the processed carbs (which is not easy when you love pasta as much as I do, guys), I ate mine all plain-like. It was still dang good.

Sausage with Onions and Roasted Peppers
Adapted from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual

2 bell peppers (at least one red; the other red, yellow or orange)
1 small yellow onion
2 tsp. canola oil
Kosher salt
1 pound hot pork sausage, casings removed
14 oz. canned San Marzano tomatoes
1/4 cup loosely packed basil leaves, sliced crosswise into 1/4 inch slices

Roast the peppers:
Using a gas stove, turn two burners on high and lay a pepper on each (Using tongs, please!). Roast the peppers, using the tongs to turn them, until the skins are evenly and completely black and blistered. It should take between 5 and 10 minutes.

(If you don't have gas burners, brush the peppers with a bit of canola oil and roast them under the broiler, following pretty much the same procedure. This method may take a bit longer.)

Once the peppers are roasted, place them in a medium mixing bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. They'll steam a bit before they cool, which will make them easy to peel. Once they're cool, peel away the blackened bits and core and seed them. Slice them lengthwise in 1/4 inch wide slices, and set aside.

Prepare the sausage & onions:
Cut the onion in half lengthwise (through the root), then cut the halves into 1/4 inch wide slices with the grain, meaning lengthwise from the root to the tip.

Heat the canola oil in a wide saute pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion and just a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens and takes on a golden color. If things are browning too quickly, add a splash of water to the pan (but make sure it cooks off before you move on to the next step).

Use a slotted spoon to add the onion to the peppers. Without turning the heat down, add the sausage to the pan. Use a wooden spoon to break it into small clumps and saute for 10-12 minutes, until it's brown but not dry.

Add the canned tomatoes, crushing them one by one as you add them to the pan. Add half the basil. Scrape the bottom of the pan to rescue any delicious browned bits. Simmer the lot for 15-30 minutes, or longer if you have the time. Add the peppers, onions and remaining basil, and cook for a few minutes more.

Serves 2-3.

Just like my Nonna would have made, had I had an Italian-American Nonna.

No birthday, in my opinion, would be complete without some really, really good food, and some seriously awesome company with which to enjoy it. A good thing, then, that my friend Miya came out in the blustery rain to meet me for lunch on Friday at one of my very favorite places, Frankie's Spuntino.

Frankie's offers sandwiches and a brunch menu, but I knew that I, at least, was destined for pasta. I love their pasta. And their salads are pretty damn good, too. In fact, I remembered that Miles' Caesar salad had been something approaching perfection, and decided to start with that. My memory, it turns out, was spot-on. Caesar salad can be really, really boring, but Frankie's version is anything but. It's salty and earthy from the anchovies, a bit funky from the parmesan cheese, and super-creamy from the egg. Topped with a bit of spicy, freshly-ground black pepper, it's a crunchy pile of Italian-American goodness - which is really what Frankie's is all about.

For my main, I had the cavatelli with hot sausage, browned butter and sage. I. Love. This. Dish. It's a remarkably satisfying combination of flavors, with the nuttiness of the butter playing perfectly against the spicy, salty sausage and the piney sage. In fact, I love it so much that I make my own version - with orrechiette - on a fairly regular basis. But nothing can top the original.

Miya ordered the gnocchi with marinara sauce and fresh ricotta. I am not usually a fan of gnocchi; I've too often been disappointed by leaden or soggy lumps of potato flour when I should be delighted by soft pillows of the same. Frankie's gnocchi, however, are definitively delightful. They come dressed in what is known in Italian-American circles as "gravy," a slightly tangy marinara sauce made from the best tomatoes and little else, other than know-how. The ricotta elevates the proceedings from delightful to sublime. It's cool and milky against the acidic tomatoes, and compliments the gnocchi's own creaminess.

No Italian meal would be complete without a shot of espresso, and Frankie's delivered pretty well in this area, too. Their espresso is dark, strong and full of so-coffee-y-it's-almost-sweet flavor. Nothing settles the tummy after a giant plate of buttered pasta like espresso.

Miya took her leftover gnocchi home in an adorably stamped paper bag. I'm kinda wishing I'd brought the tiny bit of cavatelli left on my plate home with me. Maybe next time...

Frankie's 17 Spuntino
17 Clinton Street (between Houston and Stanton)
212.253.2303

Just around the corner. (Sort of.)

On Saturday afternoon, my mom and I paid a visit to the Cooper-Hewitt, where we perused the latest exhibit in the National Design Triennial series (Why Design Now?) and lusted over the Lobmeyr glassware exhibit. I'm still dreaming of the Josephine decanter, which is, temptingly, available for sale in the gift shop. (As a member, I get 10% off, but even that can't justify such an extravagant purchase at the moment. Sigh.)

In any case, a glorious afternoon filled with beautiful design was capped off by a seriously tasty meal at a restaurant that has become something of an Upper East Side institution: Sfoglia. Incredibly, even though it opened in 2006 (spurred by the wild success of their restaurant of the same name on Nantucket), and has been wildly popular ever since, this was my first visit - but definitely not my last.

I started my meal with one of the contorni, a beet and cucumber salad dressed with yogurt and poppy seeds. Mom and I loved this one. The beets were incredibly flavorful, to the point where I'm convinced that they were roasted, then marinated, and finally added to the salad. The yogurt dressing (which I think had a touch of sherry vinegar in it) bound the late-season cucumber to the beets, and the greens added a peppery bite to the proceedings. Despite the messiness of our post-salad smiles (damn poppy seeds), we loved it.

Sfoglia (which means sheet of pasta dough in Italian) offers their pasta dishes in either primi or secondi portion sizes; Mom and I both went for secondi-sized versions and skipped a meat main. My pasta was a penne tossed with braised lamb, plums and eggplant, all topped with whipped ricotta salata. It reminded me a bit of the eggplant and mascarpone pasta I made during Meatless Week, and I especially liked the play of the sweet, meaty plums against the earthy, melty lamb and eggplant. I'm a fan of sweet fruits in savory dishes, and this was no exception. The ricotta added a level of gentle funk to the proceedings.

Dessert was a dish of sorbet made with the Concord grapes I'd forced my mother to sniff down at the Greenmarket that morning. Creamy and lustily fragrant, it didn't go so well with the chocolate chip cookie, but the cookie was pretty good in its own right. And I'm never one to turn down a decent chocolate chip cookie, you know?

No meal so decadent would be complete without a cup of espresso, especially when the people eating are me and Mom - two well-documented coffee fiends. Sfoglia's espresso is up to snuff, and certainly did the trick. I walked the eight blocks home slowly, but contentedly.

Sfoglia
135 East 92nd Street (at Lexington)
212.831.1402

Browned butter makes everything better.

A few weeks ago, when Louisa was in town, I had a superlative meal at Frankie's Spuntino down on Clinton Street. You may remember my desperate attempt to recreate their roasted beet and avocado salad; this post is about my imitation version of their (justly) famous cavatelli with browned butter and hot sausage.

This pasta is, in a word, too-licious. While sage and browned butter are a well-known and time-honored pair, the addition of a pinch of garlic and some porky, spicy sausage really make the dish sing. The sauce, nothing more than butter and pasta cooking water, is silky and spare, and the sausage's snap plays beautifully with the chewiness of the al dente pasta.

Some versions I found online called for a bit more sage; I find it's better with about half a cup between two people. It's enough to lend a good dose of piney flavor without making every bit overwhelmingly herbal. And, as is my wont, I added a bit more garlic than most versions because, well, I like garlic. You might want to adjust your seasonings depending on the sausage you use (if it's heavy on the fennel, for example, you might want less sage), but this is a remarkably forgiving meal.

Finally, the question of what sort of pasta to use. I searched high and low for cavatelli this weekend, but to no avail. Instead, I went for orecchiette. I've used penne in earlier variations, but I think the orecchiette is more suited to the dish - but, if you can find cavatelli, please use it! It's even more delightfully chewy than orecchiette.

Oh, and, for my veggie friends - leave out the sausage, and sub in a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes. All of the heat, none of the meat! (Look, Mom, I made a rhyme!)

Frankie's [Orecchiette] with Browned Butter and Hot Sausage

1/2 lb. orecchiette or cavatelli
1 tbs. canola oil
2 links hot pork sausage
4 tbs. butter
1/2 cup sage leaves, whole
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Parmesan cheese, for serving
Salt and pepper

Cook the pasta in salted, boiling water until just al dente. Set aside, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet set over moderately high heat, brown the sausage links until dark brown on all sides. The sausages should be just barely cooked through.

Wipe out the skillet and turn the heat to medium. Add the butter and melt it and then continue to cook until the milk solids begin to turn brown and smell nutty. Add the sage and garlic and cook for a minute to release the flavors. Slice the sausages crosswise into rounds and add back to the pan. Add the cooked pasta to the pan, along with a bit of the cooking water. Cook over medium heat until the the pasta has absorbed a good bit of the sauce and everything is well-combined.

Transfer the pasta and sauce to two bowls or plates, sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper and parmesan, and serve immediately.

Serves 2.

Little plates, big flavors.

On Friday night, Cristin and I met up at Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto to enjoy some Italian nibbles and dish about the goings-on in our lives. We ordered a bottle of red wine along with come caponata, brussels sprouts, burrata and arista.

First up was the caponata, a sweet and tangy eggplant relish studded with stewed onions and peppers. This was delicious - alternately musky and bright in flavor, and full of interesting texture. It was particularly tasty (and sinful) heaped onto the small slices of focaccia that came in our little bread bowl. The salt on top of the focaccia set off the sweet caponata beautifully.

Next, the arista. Arista is pork loin, slow roasted and basted with an assortment of spices. It's served cold, sliced thin, and it's quite yummy. One of the subtler breeds of salumi, it's gently porky and lightly fatty. Perfect for a middle course on a warm spring night - and I suspect it'd make a tasty sandwich, too.

Of all the dishes we ordered, the burrata was least exciting. It was good, but not creamy or magical enough to write home about. I was a bit underwhelmed, to be honest.

Last, but most definitely not least: the brussels sprouts. Lightly sauteed in pancetta fat (the pancetta itself was tossed back into the mix as a finishing touch) and touched with red wine vinegar, this dish represents three of my favorite things brought together in one perfect place. They'll be off the menu soon, since the cold weather is pretty much over, so go soon or go home.

Overall, I found Salumeria Rosi to be pretty darn good - a good value, great service, and pretty much everything we tasted was delicious. I'll definitely be back, and I can't wait to sample some more salumi options when I go.

Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto
283 Amsterdam Ave. (Between 73rd and 74th Streets)
212-877-4800

A late dinner.

After Louisa's most excellent reading at the Lady Jane Salon, she and I and our friend Arie decided to walk a block west and get some dinner at Lupa. Now, normally I don't get to eat Italian food with Louisa, since it's Nick's least favorite cuisine. But she was sans Nick on this trip, so I decided the time was right for an introduction to my beloved Roman pastas.

We started with the verdure misto, a platter of seasonal vegetables, each prepared in a unique way. The night we went, the platter featured assorted olives, broccoli rabe with ricotta, marinated squash, beets with pistachio sauce, treviso and brussels sprouts with pecorino. I enjoyed the sprouts, but thought they had a bit too much cheese going on - it was hard to find the spicy bite of the sprouts under all of that. The beets, though, were the star of the show. The pistachio sauce was insanely delicious, and the light nuttiness played beautifully with the sweetness of the beets.

Next, we each ordered a plate of pasta. I went for the bucatini all'amatriciana, a long, hollow pasta with tomatoes, red onion and guanciale (cured pork jowl, similar to bacon). I make this a lot at home, since it can be thrown together with ingredients I always keep on hand (I use fresh tomatoes in the summer, canned in the winter.) - and, I have to say, I like my version better. This one was good and bacony, but the red onion was a bit too sweet to act as a foil to the tomatoes, and there wasn't enough red pepper going on. The pasta was perfect, though.

Louisa's dish, on the other hand, was stellar. She ordered the bavette cacio e pepe, a classic Roman dish. Bavette is a thin, flat pasta - a bit like fettucine, but made without egg. The pasta is tossed with copious amounts of cheese (cacio) and pepper (pepe) until it's both creamy and mildly spicy. This version was perfect - silky, smooth, creamy, but with a bit of a bite.

We drank a bottle of Italian white and stumbled out into the chilly spring evening. Fortified by pasta and beets, though, it didn't seem so cold anymore.

Lupa
170 Thompson Street (Between Houston & Bleecker)
212.982.5089

Almost summer.

I'm a sucker for a change in season. I love the first crisp evenings of autumn, the puffy breezes of early spring, and even the first day or two of summer's sweltering heat. And I truly love the frigid cold of winter. I love bundling up in my coat and scarf, pulling on my gloves, and heading out into a world whose edges seem somehow more sharply defined than in warmer weather.

But when winter's doldrums descend, I start to miss summer's bounty in earnest. I crave tomatoes and corn and berries; I yearn for bunches of peonies and dahlias, and I dream of ice cream and cold coffee. And while I've found frozen corn to be a decent, craving-sating substitute for its fresh counterpart, I've never been a huge fan of canned tomatoes. They've always seemed a bit cloying to me, somehow lacking in the earthy, muddy flavor that makes their fresh brethren so delicious.

Finally, though, I think I've found a reason to keep canned tomatoes in the pantry. Thanks to Smitten Kitchen's post about Marcela Hazan's simple, winter-friendly tomato sauce, I'm now prepared to invest in multiple cans of San Marzano tomatoes.

The recipe is the epitome of ease; you open the can of tomatoes and dump them into a three-quart pot along with the better part of a stick of butter and a halved onion. Turn the heat to medium, simmer for about an hour - and you're done. You should stir it every once in a while, and don't forget to use the back of your spoon to mush the increasingly tender tomatoes against the side - it's what passes for pureeing in this recipe.

I disagree with Deb on one point - I think the sauce profits a good deal from a modest sprinkling of Parmesan cheese; it adds to the creaminess already going on, and adds a funky note to things that really gets the party started.

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions
Adapted from Marcela Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking

28 ounces whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano are the best!)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy, 3-quart saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, or until drops of fat float free of the tomatoes.

Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serves four.

Yes, more pasta!

Yesterday for lunch, I made an old favorite: pasta with amatriciana sauce. I first had this dish at my favorite spot for Upper East Side Italian, Paola's, which is right around the corner from my apartment - literally - I don't even have to cross the street to get there.

Traditionally, amatriciana is a sauce served with bucatini, a kind of thick, hollow spaghetti. The sauce is made with guanciale (cured pork jowl), plum tomatoes, red onion, and lots and lots of crushed red pepper. I make it with Schaller and Weber bacon, and, yesterday, with some oddly-shaped short pasta I found at Williams-Sonoma.

The sauce takes less time to make than you'll spend getting your water to boil and your pasta to cook, so next time you have 15 minutes on hand, why not give it a go?

Bucatini all'Amatriciana alla Queenie
Serves 1

1/4 pound bucatini or spaghetti
Kosher salt
1/8 c. slab bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 tsp. olive oil
1/4 small red onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
2 small plum tomatoes, chopped
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, to taste

Set a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. When the water reaches a boil, add salt and the pasta.

While the pasta cooks, heat a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat and add the bacon. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crisp and had given off most of its fat. Drain all but one teaspoon of the bacon fat from the pan and return it to the heat.

Add the olive oil, red onion and garlic, and cook over medium-high heat until translucent and fragrant. Add the tomatoes and continue to cook, stirring frequently. Add crushed red pepper to taste - the dish should be spicy.

As the pasta cooks, spoon a little of the cooking water into the sauce, which should be kept at a simmer. The sauce will thicken (thanks to the starch in the water). When the pasta is cooked to al dente, drain it (do not rinse) and add immediately to the skillet. Toss the sauce and pasta together for a minute or so over the heat, then remove from the heat and add the cheese, stirring to combine.

Serve immediately.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for...Fage?

I really, really love spaghetti carbonara. I love how salty the bacon is is, and how the creaminess of the sauce is punctuated by the freshly ground black pepper, and how the sharp scallions I chop up and throw in cut through the rich, pungent cheese and the delicate eggs. But it's not exactly the kind of thing you can have every night without feeling more than slight guilt about the whole thing.

Which is why last night, when I was futzing around the fridge, trying to figure out what else to toss into the rapidly boiling pot of spaghetti (leftover roasted brussels sprouts and some braised garlic already sitting at the bottom of the bowl, waiting to be tossed), all I wanted was cheese and eggs and bacon. But then my eye alighted on my 17-ounce container of Fage fat-free yogurt.

As much as I love carbonara - that's how much I always hated plain yogurt. Bland, flat, and almost sour, it was worse than cheese. And I HATED cheese.

But then, about six months ago, someone on eGullet clued me into Fage - the fat-free version is thick, creamy, adaptable, and remorse-free. I eat it with granola, with slices of honeybell, with brown sugar, but it had never occurred to me to use it in a savory dish.

I tossed a couple tablespoons with the hot pasta...the result? All the creaminess (well, almost), none of the guilt. Sold!