Mangia, Thunderdome! It's pasta week, where we celebrate mankind's finest dish: the noble noodle. You have 1250 words to write a story involving pasta. Want another 250 words? Molto bene! Order the chef's choice and I'll assign you the pasta of my choosing, and I'll even throw in a recipe! Do you have to use the exact recipe in your story? No, you don't, but you do have to sit through a paragraph about what the recipe means to me, which is how food blogging works these ways. Sorry, but that's the way the biscotti crumbles!

Note about the recipes: I've vetted a good portion of these myself, but I haven't had a chance to cook all of them. If you request vegan or vegetarian, I'll be happy to dig you up a recipe, but chances are I won't have made it myself. Sorry!