Carbonara for Mum

Choose a warm day, with a big friendly sun. Springtime is perfect; summer might be, when August fades and September arrives.

Cook it for lunch, when the tiles are kept warm, by sun rays, by black cats. At night the sauce would lose colour, the smell would be swallowed by drafts.

Cook it as a gift, shared between women, like a blanket of strength given from daughters to mums.

CARBONARA

Ingredients (serves 2)

Takes about 20 minutes to make

2 yolks

50 gr of parmiggiano reggiano

50 gr of cream

bacon

spaghetti

1.   Fry the bacon first, in a pan, with some oil. It’s up to you to decide the amount, just don’t overdo it: you should have enough bacon to find it once in a mouthful, not more. Pink flesh should get darker, and smaller. White heavy fat should then melt, and turn crystal like, greasy with oil. The smell should now  make you hungry: do taste the fried little things, make sure that they’re ready, salty, tasty like thumbs when you where a baby just born.

2.     Take the bacon out of the pan, and dry it till the fat drops are gone. Don’t throw the oil away, it will add some flavour to your spaghetti, at the end, just before lunch.

3.   Now prepare the sauce. Grate the cheese till you have a soft peak, touch it gently and taste it, only if you want. Put it in a bowl with the yolks, and then add the cream, a milky and fresh waterfall. Mix with a fork, until yellow and white have made a new colour for painting a velvety lake. Now add some salt, but be careful, of course. Bacon is salty, cheese it is too. Just add some flavour, do not ruin the job. Last, add some pepper, and then add some more. The cream is so flat, just spice it up.

  

4.    In the meantime, just put some water with a small handful of coarse salt on a stove; cover it if you need to speed up, and then wait until it has boiled.

5.  Then put spaghetti into the water, and wait - again, I know. Cooking time should take about ten minutes, but trust me, do taste. You shouldn’t feel the spaghetti’s strong soul of corn, but they shouldn’t look weak, or depressed. Take them out of  the water, at last.

6.    Now, finally, put them in a pan: fry them with some oil, the one that you put aside, then add the bacon, and pretend to be a chef, mixing and tossing and smelling the wafts from the pan.

7.     And then add the sauce. Be quick - it gets hard, it’s the eggs’ fault! You must sit down and eat it, don’t answer the phone, don’t wait for someone. Just you, and your mum, with some extra pepper, and a sparkling warm sun.

A beam from the cream

yellow like sun

Yolks in a shell

broken for mum

A beam from the cream

A dress for thin ones

A dress for spaghetti

A dress for a walk

out of the pan

A beam from the cream

With bacon as earrings

With crystal for parties

With light for a laughter

With daughters and mums

Sitting on chairs

Waiting for drums