Living: It's a Pasta Avalanche!

Italy's love food becomes an all-American passion

Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.

—Sophia Loren

A few years ago, the ultrachic restaurants of America were almost exclusively French. Today, on the smart streets of Manhattan, Washington, Chicago and Beverly Hills, three-star cafes are filled with the pungent aromas of Naples and Bologna. Pasta vincit ora/na/Not only the familiar, plebeian spaghetti, macaroni and ravioli, but more than 150 forms of Mediterranean batter, from agnolotti to ziti, have landed in fancy dress on elegant menus. Indeed, just about...