Just about to make spaghetti carbonara for the house and a lovely memory comes to me...
It’s my first math conference out of the US. Several Italian algebraic geometers, most of them devoted students of a seemingly wonderful and all powerful “Barbara” ( @BarbaraFantechi), befriend me and help me navigate the conference
I witnessed a single vicious argument among them, instigated by myself. I was a fledgling cook and they were teasing me, asking if know how to “cook pasta the American way”
I wisely told them I did not, and asked them to share a recipe I could try at home. One began to tell me how to make a pasta carbonara
Another interjected to say “you forgot about the onion” and the first looked horrified and said “of course there is no onion”
An aside, I can still remember the way they said the word: own-yawn
The argument ended when one of them said “of course you think that, you’re a _____”
I don’t know what that word was, but I had the sense it was a not necessarily nice word for a person from a certain region of italy?
I have liked @BarbaraFantechi since then

FWIW I prefer the recipe without onion