I am amazed how many friends have managed to get tasks done during this pandemic isolation. The garden of my friends the Fitzgeralds looks like something out of a French painting, with pots of herbs on the fence, homemade cushions with seating for friends and two gorgeous cocker spaniels lazing on my legs, adding to the ambience. The Robertsons’ grass looks like a golf course, their bird feeders with hovering mammas feeding fledglings. Even my condos are so full of perennials they are about to spill onto the sidewalks.

I need to do less house cleaning and more reading, cooking and watching television. The house is clean (the kitchen always pristine), but the clutter gets to me. I do put the bills where they need to be, so I can pay them, and I get rid of junk mail quickly and take it and newspapers to the Dumpster, but the magazines I put in neat piles and sometimes forget to read them.

Such was the case with the May/June issue of Yankee, which probably arrived in April. I love Yankee, especially its columnists. I have known Amy Traverso, its senior food editor, for a long time and her articles and recipes are really good. In that issue, she writes about The Blue Oar in Haddam, our part of the shoreline. And in another, she has a recipe for strawberry shortcake, with the shortcake made with pistachios. Obviously, local strawberries are gone but I will use the shortcake recipe with pistachios, using heavy cream instead of butter, making the recipe easier to make.

Another piece is about Krista Kern Desjarlais and her two restaurants in Maine. You may remember her from her restaurant in Westerly called Three Fish.

Decades ago she was serving pastries that were not only delicious but picture perfect. I wrote about her then and have followed her ever since. I ate at her tiny restaurant, Bresca, in Portland, Maine, a few times and loved everything about it.

In the magazine she included a recipe for Pistachio Pesto. I make basil pesto every summer, package about two big tablespoons in plastic snack sizes, freeze the packages separated by paper towels and the little ones into a bigger plastic bag. (The paper towels allow you to separate the snack packs one at a time. You can warm the packets in your hands and they are warm by the time your pasta has boiled and drained.)

To make pesto, use any herb for the sauce. And if you are out of pine nuts (pretty expensive and difficult to find), use walnuts. Krista suggests pistachios. I never thought of that. Use the recipe below and, this summer, use a choice of almost any herb you have and any nuts available.

In addition to cooking pasta with pesto, use it in marinara or most any red sauce or in stew this winter, especially if you make pesto out of parsley.

Krista also uses a tablespoon each of lemon zest and lemon juice and a little shallot. All this sounds delicious, doesn’t it?

Pesto alla Genovese

(adapted from “365 Ways to Cook Pasta” by Marie Simmons and Krista Kern Desjarlais, chef/owner. Bresca & the Honey Bee and Purple House, North Yarmouth, Maine,)

Makes 1 cup or enough for 1 pound of pasta

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves (or other herbs, like parsley)

½ cup pignoli (pine nuts), walnuts or pistachios

1 large garlic clove, chopped

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest

½ medium shallot, sliced

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Finely chop basil or other herbs, nuts, garlic, salt, lemon juice and zest and shallot in a food processor. With processor still running, add oil in a slow, steady stream through the feed tube until mixture is thoroughly blended. Transfer to a bowl and fold in the cheese.

Freeze in tiny freezer bags. When ready to use, you can thaw the pesto in freezer bag between your two hands.

Cook’s Tip: I triple or quadruple (or more) and freeze pesto in small zipper plastic bags. The pesto will last for more than a year and will thaw in minutes.

On the Side

I cook, I read, I watch television. On "Somebody Feed Phil," he tasted Montreal bagels.

I remembered having bagels in Montreal maybe two decades ago. They look like bagels because they have a hole in the middle, but they're bigger around and thinner. It was at a place called St-Viateur. I had that bagel as a corned beef sandwich. The corned beef looks like the same corned beef here, but in Montreal they call it smoked meat.

What could I do? I wasn't going to take the train to Grand Central in New York for bagels to take home. Instead, I ordered a dozen everything bagels. I got them on July 11. I ate one and packaged them into the freezer. I am not sure they cost much more than the ones in New York, and certainly were cheaper than the New York bagels and a round trip to Grand Central. They came from Goldbelly and shipping was free. They were delicious.

Goldbelly

goldbelly.com

Lee White lives in Groton. She can be reached at leeawhite@aol.com.