Food I'm Eating: First Homemade Pesto of the Year (July 12, 2014)

Two events mark the true start of summer: Picking the first homegrown tomato from the vine and making the year's first batch of homemade pesto. Cherry tomatoes are already ripening here. Full-sized tomatoes will require another couple of weeks it looks like, but I've just finished making the first pesto of the season. Fresh basil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, raw garlic, and salt. Nothing else. Basil gets my vote for most useful of all the herbs. It can garnish tomatoes and it makes pesto. Even a small garden can grow enough to provide pesto all summer long and then, frozen, for most of the winter as well. Presented here in a cup made by local (Sebastopol) potter John Chambers.