It might be said that lately I have been ill.

I've had (as Christopher Walken put in during his infamous Blue Oyster Cult skit on SNL) a "fever". 

Unlike Mr. Walken's compulsion for cowbell, however, my penchant has been for pasta.  I should point out, though, that cowbell is a close second, even so many years past BOC's glory days.

It all started a little more than a week ago while I was watching reruns of Molto Mario, Mario Batali's short-lived cooking show for the Food Network, recently revived in syndication by the Fine Living channel. 

More...