Favorite Recipe: Sicilian Pesto

I used to grow cherry tomatoes on my deck when I had full sun there (neighbors and a red maple have since intervened), and at the end of the summer was so inundated that I researched a lot of recipes for cooking with them. This was my favorite: a pesto that uses almonds instead of pine nuts. Hm. I may just make some tonight.

Sicilian Pesto (as adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

1/4 cup slivered almonds
12 oz cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves
1 garlic clove, peeled and smashed
1/3 cup olive oil
1 oz parmesan cheese, grated
pinch of salt
1 lb cooked pasta (spaghetti is best, I think)

Process almonds, garlic, and oil in a blender until broken down a bit – add salt and the cherry tomatoes a handful at a time and process until smooth. Add basil leaves and process until smooth. The sauce will be a sort of unappetizing murky green color but don't despair. It tastes wonderful tossed with hot pasta and the grated parmesan. You might need to add a little hot water during the tossing process to make sure the sauce coats all the pasta.

Favorite Recipe: Cardamom-Pistachio Thins

I worked a food processing shift at the Park Slope Food Coop yesterday and promised to share some recipes with the people around the table. Here's one of my all-time favorites; it makes only a dozen cookies, and as Corinne my fellow food-processor noted, "it's really nice sometimes to not have huge batches of cookies."

Cardamom Pistachio Thins (from Eating Well)

I alter this recipe slightly by toasting whole cardamom seeds (discard the pod) in a hot skillet for about 30 seconds and then whizzing them through my coffee grinder. The aromatic nature of the cardamom is just so lovely this way. I also add a bit of powdered ginger. These cookies are a wee bit crisp at the edges and soft at the center, and are delicious with a cup of black tea.

Velik'den': The Blooming of the Bradford Pear Trees

"Velik'den" is the Ukrainian word for Easter, but it really means "The Great Day." I like to think that the pre-Christian Ukrainians, calendarless, anxious about the coming of Spring, all decided among themselves when the Great Day was. They'd just know, stepping outside and sniffing the air...and a special smile would spread across everyone's face.

For me, Velik'den' is when the Bradford Pears bloom in the treepits of New York City. In early Spring these trees present buds that open to a tight fistful of smaller buds, which gradually relax and open up into a bouquet of little white flowers. (Not particularly nice-smelling, though.) When warmth comes quickly, as it usually does at least once or twice in Springtime here, the trees explode into flower all over. This happened on Friday, April 2 this year.

Pysanky 2010: Freeform Pattern 6

I've been experimenting this year with making Ukrainian Easter eggs simply by melting the beeswax patty a little and smudging it immediately on the egg. The smudges are of slightly different shapes – some quite perfect-edged, others feathery. The overall effect is impressionistic. Since pysanky (if these can truly be called that) can be made very quickly via this method, I've been more daring with dye combinations. Here's one that I decorated with white, then red, and then dipped in green, producing an interesting dark grey background. It reminded me of something, and when I was on my way to work recently, I realized what it was. I've obviously been spending too much time in the subway just staring at the floor.

Early Spring, Union Square

Across the street from my office is an Anthropologie store. They painted their windows with a green leaf design that glows in the angle of sunlight coming across the street.

 At the greenmarket in late March it was still chilly enough to require a coat – and it was a good idea to have an umbrella too – while shopping among the forced tulips and hyacinth.

My eyes are hungry for green, but at this point in Spring I can only find this color painted on, or imported from a greenhouse....

Pysanky 2010: Kids at Ukrainian Museum

On Saturday afternoon, March 27, I taught a class at the Ukrainian Museum that introduced the art of pysanky to middleschoolers from Chinatown. These kids were from the honors class so they were serious and intelligent adolescents – only one of them set himself on fire, just a little bit. Here's a picture of one young gentleman melting the wax off his egg with great concentration. This is the best moment of the pysanky-creating process but also the riskiest. I do appreciate how he held his paper towel far away from the flame.

A small crowd gathered around this girl as she melted the wax off her pysanka:

And here are the finished eggs this group made. Very nice!

Pysanky 2010: The Hunter's Egg

Here is my friend Jeff's second Ukrainian Easter egg of the season, right after I melted off the wax. He likes to fish and hunt, so I drew him a pattern with fish swimming on one side and a deer pausing under a tree on the other. My friend Chris sketched the deer so it would look more realistic instead of the stylized Ukrainian design for a deer. The dyes were from last year and came out a bit too light, I think. But it's a very nice egg. I like the pattern underneath the soil where the deer is standing -- it looks like the energies of growing seeds. In the traditional Ukrainian reading of pysanky symbols, this egg invokes wealth (deer), balance and protection (stars and meanders around border), and health/Christianity (fish).