Some readers have been asking for the recipes that appear in TABLE FOR SEVEN. While I can’t claim Gordon Ramsay status in the kitchen — other than shouting, “You DONKEY!” to Zoe in a passable English accent — I do like to cook, especially when it’s something unhealthy and delicious.

This spaghetti carbonara recipe is featured in the second January chapter in TABLE FOR SEVEN. Pasta is my ultimate comfort food. This dish is starchy, and cheesy, and bacony, and exactly what I crave on terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.

What can go wrong with pasta, cheese, wine and pancetta? Nothing, that’s what.

For a 2-person serving, here’s what you’ll need:

12 oz spaghetti
1/3 lb. pancetta, diced
2 shallots, diced
1/3 cup white wine
1/3 cup grated pecorino romano
3/4 cup grated parmesan
2 eggs, beaten

Cook the spaghetti, as per the box instructions, until it’s al dente. Drain.

Meanwhile . . .

Mmmmm, bacon.

Saute the pancetta over medium heat until the fat begins to render. Add the shallots, and cook until golden. Then add the wine, and let the whole thing simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.

This will smell delicious. If you have a pug, she will appear and stare at you.

Please, please, please drop some of that fancy bacon on the floor.

Ignoring the dog, add the pasta and, using tongs, toss the spaghetti with the pancetta/shallot mixture.

Then add in the cheese, and toss some more.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Most carbonara recipes say that at this point, you should remove the pan from the heat, add the eggs, and let the heat of the pasta cook the eggs. Then they add all sorts of dire warnings about how the eggs won’t be fully cooked, and there’s a possibility you will contract salmonella, the plague, etc, so if you do, don’t contact their legal department.

I usually leave the pan on the burner, and toss the eggs with the pasta over a low heat. Gordon might not approve, but hey, I’ve also never gotten sick, so I’m okay with that.

Dish out into two shallow bowls, and pepper to taste. You can also add salt to taste, but I find that the pancetta and pecorino romano add enough salt to the dish, so it doesn’t really need more.

Serve and enjoy. With the remaining white wine, of course.

It all started with brussels sprouts.

(Interestingly, that is the proper spelling. I just looked it up. It is not, as I first thought, brussel sprout. There is an s. And while you can capitalize the B, it would then be Brussels sprouts, and not Brussel’s sprouts.)

Everyone hates brussels sprouts. They are a wholly unlikeable food. I have childhood memories — and not good ones — of my mother steaming them, and then forcing us to choke them down without the benefit of first drowning them in cheese sauce. They smelled and tasted like repellant little cabbages. I’ve happily gone 25 years without eating one of the nasty things.

But then, last Christmas, my mother served them for dinner. Only this time, gone were the small, stinky, steamed cabbages. Instead, she’d sliced the brussels sprouts into thin slivers and caramelized them in olive oil. Lo and behold . . . they were delicious.

I finally got around to cooking them myself on Easter, using the recipe I found here. I particularly liked the addition of toasted pecans and a pinch of brown sugar. Who’d have thought? I now like — no, I now love – brussels sprouts.

Next up: Split Pea Soup.

Split Pea Soup, like the brussels sprout, is universally loathed. But I had an enormous ham leftover from Easter, and when I googled what to do with it, I came across this recipe for Split Pea Soup. The rave reviews intrigued me, and I decided to make it for dinner last night. And while I’d normally not consider soup –especially, a thick, rich soup — to be the ideal post-beach meal, I was pleasantly surprised. We scraped the bottoms of our bowls, and I’m already looking forward to the leftovers tonight.

So what should I attempt next? There’s always chicken liver — the smell of which, when fried, makes me gag — but then again, I do love it in country pâté . . .