It's early afternoon in Rome, but it's not too soon for Lidia Bastianich to ponder what she'll be eating for dinner. "Tonight I'm going out with a friend. She's taking me to a wonderful trattoria," she says by phone. "So maybe some pasta. Cacio e pepe? Amatriciana? Or maybe carbonara."

In her distinctive voice, you can practically smell the cracked black peppercorns, see the glistening nibs of guanciale and taste the eggy undertow and Parmesan velvet clinging to spaghetti. And you can probably hear her smack her lips as she does at the end of her cooking shows, when she tastes the dishes she has prepared with lusty abbondanza.