I have always loved pasta carbona, starting back when my mom made it with bacon and a cooked egg and cheese sauce (remember, foodies, that this was during the Salmonella scare, a movement that had a much larger effect on my childhood than I ever realized at the time - I still clean up more meticulously after cooking with raw chicken than anything else.)

Later, I learned to make it in a slightly more traditional manner, with pancetta, raw egg, and fresh pasta, and fell more in love with it than ever. From the moment I conceived of making my own guanciale, I was daydreaming about the carbonara I would make.

The build-up to this ultimate carbonara was intense. As the moment loomed nearer, my inner perfectionist kicked in. I couldn't make this carbonara with just any pasta, so I plotted my first attempt at homemade pasta. I usually feel free to play fast and loose with recipes, but this one (again from Hazan), I intended to follow to the letter. I even made a special shopping trip.

For such excitement, the cooking was almost anti-climactic: carbonara is the simplest dish you could hope to make. The eating, on the other hand, was triumphant. I already bragged about the pasta, but the sauce, the sauce! Those rich pork flavors of the guanciale melted into the fresh egg and silkily coated each strand of pasta. Somehow it was refreshing and yet reassuring, light and yet earthy - a resounding rediscovery of an old favorite.