Best Pesto, By Request

* I use walnuts instead of the traditional pine nuts because pine nuts are so much more expensive and have you heard of pine mouth? Pine mouth is a condition one can get after eating pine nuts where everything you eat tastes horribly bitter – no matter what it is you eat – and which can last for two weeks! Walnuts sub in just fine.

* If you are awesome you can use a suribachi bowl and pestle instead of a food processor. Like this. They are large bowls with a rough interior texture. But if you are busy and/or making a lot of pesto (I try to freeze a couple of gallons so I can have it weekly all year long) a food processor really is the way to go.

Recipe text:
2 cups basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp walnuts
2 cloves garlic
salt to taste
Mix together in food processor, then *stir* in:
1/3 cup parmesan (real!)
2 Tbsp Romano
You have now made pesto!
Divide into small jars to freeze and share.

My Little Planet

I don’t live in the cabin anymore, so I don’t feel strange about sharing pictures of it now. Just slightly strange for sharing a picture of it in such a state of mess. The kitchen was so tiny!
Doing anything made a mess. Here it is, as photographed from the loft.

A hot plate, a toaster oven, a blender. A mini fridge under the counter.

In all seasons but summer, I did most of my cooking on or in the woodstove.

Once I started gardening, I sprung for a food processor to make as much pesto as my garden allowed (as I was doing in this picture). So worth it! Pesto freezes beautifully and, in the midst of winter, can instantly transport me back those dry, hot, sunny days of August.

No sink. My running water was outside.

Q & A: Regrets

I was going through old papers and found a rumpled, marked up list of questions from a Q&A sesh from years ago. Most of the questions I answered back then, but I don’t remember answering this one: Do you have any regrets?

Yes, I have regrets, and they hang on the wall in my mind like a display of decorative plates. Sometimes I dust them off; sometimes I sit and stare at them and feel depressed (though I find all decorative plate displays depressing); often I rush past them on my way to better and now.

I know it’s trendy to say “I don’t have any regrets because I love where I am now.” I love where I am but I still have regrets. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I think regret is part of the human experience – that if you don’t have regrets, you’re either not old enough or not self-aware enough.

{feel free to leave more Qs in the comment section and I will A in later posts}