Holy Man, Holy Mother!!!!!

GUESS WHAT?!

I WON!

Saveur sent me a note today saying my recipe for my Parsley Pesto Pasta was a "huge, huge hit" with the editors, and they are going to post it today! Which means, dearest reader you, that you might just be here, reading this, thanks to them and that! My biggest squeeze of gratitude.

I will tell you that my blog is not full of professional, pretty photos, or many smart posts. This is my humble space for sharing what I love, which is being in my home kitchen and surrounded by good ingredients and friends and almost always a glass of wine. Thank you for visiting!

Perfecting Parsley Pesto Pasta

I adore alliteration, even if I'm told to use less of it in my writing. I can do what I want here! So it is: Perfecting Parsley Pesto Pasta.

Saveur is having a big home cook contest for the best pasta recipe, and I really, really want that Sur La Table gift certificate!! I will show you all the neat things I get if I win.

The contest runs through the month of March, so I was looking to do something seasonal and simple but also stunning (s, s, s, s). The solution is parsley pesto, because there's always entirely too much parsley in one bunch for anything other than pummeling that stuff into submission (and pesto).

Here was a first go, paired with spaghetti and asparagus, because that's in season in March, too... at least in my part of the world. If not yours, hopefully you'll see the light of day--I mean, spring--soon.

I also got to use my new mortar and pestle to pestle-ize the pesto, which was positively thrilling!

Kuku Kadoo, Fun to Say

For once in our lives we could all celebrate together! Sarah's freezer full of lamb and my intense desire for a dish called Kuku Kadoo brought us to this meal that finished off with a much-too-ugly-to-photograph but still delicious pistachio meringue smothered with rose-water-doused mascarpone and fresh strawberries. You can read about that and see a much prettier picture here.

Here's us making mint pesto to smother all over the delectable little lamb chops. Mint + almonds + garlic + olive oil, salt, lemon juice = outrageously tasty pesto.

This is us whipping the meringue by hand! For at least ten minutes straight! In an 800 degree kitchen! I need a mixer!

Here's the Kuku Kadoo! I highly recommend halving--or even quartering--the recipe, as it made enough to feed oh, I'd say approximately 30 people as a side dish. Just wayyy too much zucchini frittata in my life after this meal. Oh, and also, the called-for 12-inch skillet is at least three times too small to fit all of the ingredients. Anyway. It was delicious nonetheless.

Here is the final meal all gorgeous and delicious.

Except When You Don't. Because, Sometimes You Won't.

Thanks, Dr. Seuss. It's true even in my exploratorium of a kitchen. Bang-ups and hang-ups happen. Like the miserable parsley and green garlic pesto over leftover potatoes and fusili pasta and peas.

Sure, it looked pretty enough. But it tasted terrible. Like, who wants that much parsley? Especially over old potatoes mixed with pasta. Ugh, and peas! This woman had to have been lying when she called the dish "tasty."

Then there was the near Vita-Mix homicide. So despicable it's embarrassing. And it was dangerous--my dear sweet Vita-Mix almost bit the dust; she smelled of smoking motor and went into overload protection mode... twice. Poor, poor Vita: You're worth more than even the tastiest almond butter. But this one wasn't tasty. It was pure horror, all those waxy fresh almonds whipping themselves into a thick, sticky glob, and not getting any more silken with additions of olive oil, water, peanut butter, Nutella (each added in subsequently desperate attempts to salvage the pricey almonds from total failure). This photo from my trash is frightening:

I swore off cooking for two days after these miserable mishaps. Ordered Chinese takeout, of all the ghastly scenarios possible.

Then I inherited a wok...