These are the building blocks of an Italian
dish called Bucatini all'Amatriciana.  Sounds hard core Italian, no?  It is.   It is my favorite sauce for pasta...not
a long cooked sauce/gravy with meatballs and other meats, that rocks too, but this is one of an endless number
of fairly quick and simple pasta sauces which are found all over the boot of Italy and its' islands.  More impor-
tantly, this was the recipe I chose to start off my Cooking demonstration series at Whole Foods in Middletown
N.J.  Sort of a dream come true story.  Through social networking, this blog, and the Saveur Magazine article,
I was asked to do a series of demonstrations lasting an hour one night a week.  Most of you already know
this (I can't stop talking about it, sorry...just can't believe the good fortune I have had with all of this). 

     So I was given the task of planning this series, demonstrating the recipe from start to finish, with a sample
being given to the audience, and finishing in one hour.  This challenge I train for every night when I am making
dinner for the family...so, I was ready to accept and deliver.   Way, way back in the 70's, I had read a cook book
which dealt with regional Italian foods.  As most of my contemporaries will agree, you ate what your parents
made, and your family too.  Being from a family with all of our roots in Southern Italy, we grew up on those
dishes from those regions, along with their evolution into the Italian-American dishes which are so popular.
One dish captured my attention, it had bacon in the sauce...now we always had some kind of pork in the
sauce, so it was not too exotic an idea...but this was not American smoked bacon, it was a product called
Pancetta or Guanciale.  They are both cured pork products, NOT SMOKED, the guanciale being a pork jowl,
the pancetta, the bacon.  Both are salt cured and rubbed with black pepper and herbs.  Even in the salumeria
of those days, the pancetta was hard to come by.  I begged my mother to make this tomato, hot pepper, and
pancetta dish, but, couldn't find the pancetta.  She substituted prosciutto.  We loved it, but, it was not the real
thing.  Then, one day, pancetta became available...and my love affair began.  It is a versatile product, chefs
Italian and non-Italian today use it in a variety of dishes from pasta, to stuffings, to vegetable sautes, to soups
in an almost endless parade of ideas.  It's salty, peppery, buttery, porky, fatty, in a good way and adds a
velvety note to whatever it is cooked into.  Therefore, I chose this recipe, which I make countless times
throughout the year, as my foray into the world of Cooking demonstrations. I am happy to report to you dear
reader, that it was a success.  As thus, I start another chapter in my life, after trading stocks during the day,
once a week I will teach you how to cook, and enjoy what you are cooking...life is good.

  To make the series interesting, I have chosen
a regional pasta recipe for each week.  The region for last nights' demo was Rome.  Bucatini (also known as Per-
ciatelli) is a spaghettli-like pasta with a hole running down the center.  Its' pairing with the Amatriciana sauce is
one of the Lazio (the province where Rome is) regions most popular pasta dishes.  Controversy abounds on the
origins of the dish, but somewhere in the vicinity of Amatrice, a town in Lazio, the sauteing of the guanciale, an
addition of tomato and chili pepper, lots of pecorino, indigenous to the area became a popular item.  It became
part of the Roman food culture, most Roman recipes use chopped onion.  So, this being a demo on Roman
pasta, we are using the pancetta,onion, and tomato and chili method.  Some remarks here....I make no claims
to have anywhere near the success of a Rachel Ray, but I find her substitution recipe descriptions to kill the
integrity of a dish.  You cannot, please, substitute any form of smoked bacon for this dish...you do not use
garlic..there is no wine added..pancetta or good artisinal guanciale (such a hard product to find for most who are
just looking to make this dish for a dinner) are the only meats to use....cayenne or hot sauce is not used, you
must use a whole red chili, or dried chili flakes.  The spicy component of the dish is key....as always, use an
Italian olive oil and San Marzano tomatoes....NO PARMIGIANO!!!  Do you think I don't like that cheese?  I may be
giving you that opinion, but I apologize..I can knock of a nice platter of the nutty salty chunks of it as an antipasto.
But, it is not part of this dish, Pecorino Romano, sheeps' milk cheese from the Roman (hello, Romano) region
is used abundantly in the dish. A little black pepper finishes it off...no parsley, no basil, no butter....For this demo
I must have researched nearly 100 recipes and videos of this dish.  So, stick with what is authentic here.
I started the class off with a simple salad of baby arugula, shaved fennel, dressed with Kalamata Olives, a little
of their brine (the flavor of an olive brine is magical, instead of vinegar, just small amounts, there's alot of flavor
and acid in there), cracked black pepper, good olive oil, sea salt.  Toss together....a nice salad to pair with
the pasta.  In true Italian fashion though, and like I grew up on, salad ALWAYS comes after the meal is done..
but, this is America, so, salad first to start the demo off.

     Dice 1 1/2 cups (about 1 lb.) of pancetta, saute  over medium
heat in a large pan with a little olive oil drizzled into it.  Stir frequently.  This takes about 5-8 minutes to render and
to start to crisp up,  Add 1 sweet onion diced, along with a 1 tsp. of dried chili flakes.  Let this cook for another
8-10 minutes..sprinkle with a little salt.  This is the critical phase of this dish in my estimation, the slow cooking
of the onion with the pancetta forms the flavor profile (is that an obnoxious foodie term?  yes, it is, i like it).  While
this is cooking (keep stirring it), open a can of San Marzano Tomatoes and add them to a bowl.  Now, crush those
scarlet gems with your hands.  When the onion/pancetta saute' is ready after 8-10 minutes, add the tomato and
blend well.  Add a touch of black pepper and lower the heat to a simmer.  Let this cook down for 15 minutes,
adding 1 tbs. of pecorino after it has cooked for 10 minutes.  Bring a large pot of water to the boil, add some
salt, and cook 1 lb. of bucatini . Cook till al dente.  Add to the pan if big enough and add a little more olive oil and
pecorino, coat well with the sauce, or have the drained pasta in a bowl, doing everything the same, adding the
sauce....serve.  6-8 portions on this one.  Sprinkle lots of pecorino on this dish...

the sauce coming together....

explaining here about the pasta

Ready to serve a steamy bowl of Bucatini All'
Amatriciana....btw, my little Sydney took the pix for this...and my Mika made sure I didn't make a fool of myself.
My family is completely involved in this venture, can anything be better?  I don't think so...Deb watched and smiled.

So I had lived through another dream in a lifetime of lucky breaks, lots of heartaches, goodtimes, bad times, etc.
like all of us must experience throughout our lives.  Eating is only one part of this food obsession of mine, sharing
this pleasure with all of you and allowing me to perform that function is just amazing.  It is no fun to eat and cook
alone, it must be shared.  I love sharing this with you...and thanks for letting me become party of your lives...good
food, prepared well, prepared with love....these are the good things...Keep cooking, keep asking me questions, tell
me your stories, we learn from each other.  Next weeks' demo, we leave Rome and go to my favorite city in the world
Venice....Buon appetito, Ciao'...now get out to the store and buy the pancetta....