Carbonara Is For (ex) Lovers

A hot and passionate take on perhaps the most famous of Roman pastas.

Welcome back to Roman pasta month, my people. Over the last few weeks, we’ve discussed cacio e pepe and alla gricia ad nauseam in the pursuit of laying the foundation for building the silkiest pan sauces outside of the motherland itself. Today, we’re adding just one more ingredient to the mix—the ol’ uova—which brings us into carbonara territory. The addition of egg in carbonara means all the flavor of alla gricia, plus a brightly golden hue to the unctuous and richly-bound sauce.

I would argue of all the Roman pastas, carbonara has the most global acclaim and as a result, a comical amount of not-so-traditional renditions. It once took an entire ten minutes for an ex Roman lover to calm down after the topic was mentioned, “carbonara with chicken! Che cazzo.” An old Italian chef of mine was equally appalled at the idea of a mushroom-based vegetarian version, another American bastardization. Emilia famously got into a fight with a Calabrian—not even a Roman, mind you—over how to make the dish. Not only did he storm out of the house, he quite literally packed his bags and left the town. “He blew up and started yelling, ‘this is how everyone makes it, and I won’t let some American come in and tell me otherwise.’ …But I was poking the bear,” she’s since admitted.

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Meet the Winemaker, Saturday November 9th

A virtual hang with Joy Kull, the Swiss-American grower and winemaker behind the La Villana label left us feeling rather inspired- she's a go-getter, passionate and driven, and even threw out a new term that brought me down a new rabbit hole these last months, agroforestry. 

Wine producers are often at the forefront of environmental movements, not necessarily as activists, but experimentalists. They see year after year how the warming climate affects their crop- not just in increasing sugar levels due to the heat, but environmental disasters and disease brought on by heavy rains during a warm time of year. Last year, most of the Mediterranean lost upwards of 50% of their grape harvest due to peronospora, a fungus that destroys the fruit. Many of the producers that Cittavino & Co. works with lost up to 90%! as they do not spray with chemicals or fungicides. Joy stands out as an anomaly, she did not lose any of her grapes to the fungus. Her unique vine training system and perhaps her 6th sense, made it possible for her to salvage her crop. Let’s learn her secrets together.

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