The goods

The best thing about having an Italian boyfriend is that his standards for Italian food are ridiculously high. He would rather eat a sock than dinner at the Olive Garden, never buys pasta sauce in a jar, splurges on “good” olive oil, and like me, he thinks that alfredo sauce is weird and gross. Tonight for example, he wanted to make pesto. Great, I thought, I love pesto! So off he went to the supermarket down the street but instead of coming back with a small jar of the oily green stuff most people would’ve bought, he came back with a wedge of Parmiggiano-Reggiano (aka Parmesan), a fat head of garlic, fresh basil, pine nuts and olive oil (Italian of course).

Apart from grating the cheese and documenting this whole process with my camera, I didn’t really do much. I observed and was greatful. That was about it. Flaneur on the other hand, got to business. He finely diced a couple cloves of raw garlic and added them to the bowl of grated Parmesan I had finished.

Mixing ingredients

Next, between tossing several of them in his mouth and marveling at how good they were (even though they were from Spain), he chopped up the pine nuts and also added those to the cheese and garlic mix.

Up next were the basil leaves, which he plucked off their long stems and minced with the sharpest knife my small kitchen had to offer. Once the basil was chopped into small enough pieces it went in with the cheese, garlic and pine nuts.

After getting a generous pour of olive oil (and then a couple more for good measure), he stirred everything around until it was a thick, even green mixture with an aroma so rich and powerful it filled the whole apartment. (It’s now hours since we ate and my room still smells of garlic and basil in a wonderful pesto-scented Yankee candle kind of way.)

Finally, he cooked the pasta, De Cecco fusilli (his favorite brand and the only one he eats at home in Italy). After draining it he threw it back in the pot, mixed in the pesto and served it. We sprinkled on some more fresh-grated Parmesan and sat down to enjoy our delicious pasta with authentic homemade pesto. Mmmm mmm!

Buon appetito!