NICOLA DE THOMASIS, a round-bellied, bearded, bespectacled man from the rough-hewn hills of Abruzzo, stood near the head of his dinner table, holding a pair of tongs — and my fate — in his hand. He had already placed on my plate an almost lethally large portion of spaghetti alla chitarra, dressed with the region’s traditional tomato-and-lamb ragù, and his tong-bearing hand kept inching closer and closer to the communal pasta platter until, at last, he dove in with the instrument, scooped up a final, fatal tangle of noodles and added them to my dish. I was done for.

Continued at Mangia Mangia!!!

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.