Would it be worth renting a car to drive to a store in New Jersey, or possibly Pennsylvania, to buy bags of dried pasta? For bucatini, we considered it. Bucatini is spaghetti but thicker and with a hole in it, meaning it absorbs 200 percent more sauce than its thinner, hole-free brethren, due to math. When asked via email for comment on bucatini’s allure, New York City pasta magnate Frank Prisinzano simply told me, “Lol it’s spaghetti with a hole in it. Who doesn’t like that?” In 2018, Bon Appétit deemed it the “best long pasta,” citing its powerful sauce-absorption capabilities and its general slurpiness. Bucatini Head Dan put it thusly: “There’s something about the hole. It feels more luxurious.”

I absolutely adored this read by Rachel Handler. Such lighthearted and candid journalism is more of what we need right now in this country.