Typical August Saturday...
…sort of.
I love pesto! In the past I’ve successfully grown basil by the bucket loads, made pesto all summer, canned it, and ate it all year ‘round. For some reason, the basil I planted from seed as usual has been pale, and the leaves small and spiky instead of oval and deep green. I’ve moved them, amended the soil, all kinds of things I never had to do before. They still look puny.
So this morning, I went to the Farmers’ Market and bought one farmer’s entire crop - half a trash-bag full. It took three batches and the largest bulb of elephant garlic I’ve ever seen, but I got it done. I left a couple with neighbors who’ve given me stuff, and went out to Jim’s with a jar and cooked up some pasta for it, to go along with a couple of pork chops he baked. Yum!
I’d never had pesto until I was staying at my sister Chris’ house near DC. She served it up, and I fell in love. I asked for the recipe, and copied it out onto a memo card for the recipe box I keep with family and neighbor and friend’s recipes.
As you can see, this recipe has been used a lot. The “Charlie Hayes got in Genoa” refers to Chris’ friend she’d met when they were stationed in Pusan, Korea in 1969. I texted Chris to tell her I was using her buddy’s recipe. She told me she and Charlie ate it in Genoa, and when she got back to Milwaukee, she wrote and asked him to go back to the restaurant and get the recipe. Now, of course, an internet search would suffice. The best part of this story is that Charlie was living in some palace, and when Chris visited she slept in a bedroom where Verdi had written the second act of La Traviata! That is just so very cool.
I can’t afford pine nuts, so used pecans, and I didn’t bother with the cheese or butter, but it was still wonderful. Without the cheese, though, it does tend to stick to your teeth and tongue…
It’s getting close to midnight, and the crickets and cicadas or katydids are as loud as they ever get. The loudest ones my neighbor Sonny Higgins called “chaa-chazz” - I don’t actually know how to spell that; I think it’s an old mountain term, but it rhymes with “jazz” - the same ‘a’ sound in both words.
Garden-wise, I’m doing poorly this year, except for volunteer tomatoes and potatoes, two teensy watermelon plants, and a massive plant that’s taking over the backyard - candy roasters! I think there are 3 or 4 on the vine. When I lived in Higgins, we had Cecil Higgins over for supper one night. As he left, he asked if I’d like a candy roaster. I only knew roasters as chicken, and was a tad confused about the candy part, but I said sure. And then he added, “I reckon it makes a better pie than a pumpkin.” A couple days later he showed up with what looked for all the world like a huge pale orange watermelon. And danged if it didn’t make the sweetest pie! Pies, I should say; at least four.
I left the pesto mess sprawled on the kitchen table, got my copy of “Naked Came the Leaf Peeper” off the nightstand, and read on the porch until it got too dark.
I don’t know if one can still buy that book, but it’s a great read: A 12-chapter novel written in 2011 by 12 NC authors, among them Brian Lee Knopp (whose brainchild it was), John P. McAfee, Susan Reinhardt (who I’ll be introducing at the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival), Tony Earley, Gene Cheek, Wayne Caldwell, Fred Chappell (whose wife referred to Charles Price as “Charlie,” which made me think of having an award named for him at LitFest after he passed away), Vicki Lane, Tommy Hays, Alan Gratz, Linda Marie Barrett, and Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle. It’s one of the funniest books on my shelf. Ironically, Brian had asked Charles Price if he’d like to contribute a chapter, and he declined. But he wrote the Afterword, and in his inimitable style, lambasts himself for thus missing the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s as funny as the chapters.
Well, it’s definitely bedtime, and I will finish reading Chapter 2 before I zonk. I hope you all can find a copy of this book; mine is autographed by all the authors, so I’m not loaning it out.
Be well; hugs all around,
Lucy