Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Recipe
4 October 2020
The Wound VAC is still acting up at 5 a.m. with various complaints. Resetting it by turning the power off a minute and then back on seems to help. But only when we replace the canister, do we get any relief from the beeps.
We nursed it along until about 11 a.m. this morning when it finally confirmed the canister was full, confirming our guess. The unit was manufactured in 2004 and may just be getting tired. Who knows.
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MEANWHILE, Joyce took two walks yesterday. One up through Rockridge Terrace, a bit longer than our walk around the block. And in the afternoon, she went to the market with me (so she could stock up on the produce bags she uses for trash).
That was a total of 2,200 steps.
But in the evening, she couldn't get her compression stockings on when she tried to change them. Her ankles were both swollen. I sent an email to Dr. Tong.
This morning Dr. Tong called worried she might have a blood clot because Joyce also complained about pain. But the pain is from the wound site not elsewhere on her leg. And the swelling on her ankles had gone down after a night in bed with her legs elevated.
Dr. Tong suggested a visit to the emergency room to rule out a blood clot. But Joyce didn't feel it was necessary.
Then we had a nice FaceTime chat with Amy and Mike.
We'll try taking a walk before dinner (which is going to be rack of lamb with lobster ravioli).
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OUR TRIP TO THE MARKET yesterday was for the few things we don't buy at Trader Joe's to tide us over until a shopping trip there Monday or Tuesday.
But first we had a sacrilegious lunch, whose recipe I'm about to divulge. Promise not to spread it around -- and you did not get it from me.
It's a sacrilege because pestù is traditionally unadorned. Basil and olive oil (in its purest form) on spaghetti. Period.
You will find "pesto" (the proper Italian spelling, as opposed to our Ligurian spelling of the Ligurian dish) with cheese, pine nuts, other oils, other condiments, but all you really need is basil and olive oil.
Basil itself can be any of a dozen varieties if you need some variation.
That's not what I meant by unadorned, though. I meant you don't add things like olives or mushrooms to pestù. You just sauce the pasta with pestù and that's it. You don't even heat the pestù.
As you can see from the photo, we adorned it with prosciutto. It's divine.
So here's the recipe.
Try to find a simple basil at the market. Look at the ingredients. Basil, olive oil. Nothing (or very little) else. No preservatives are necessary.
A teaspoon per serving in a sauce pan. Squeeze in some fresh lemon juice, sprinkle a little sea salt. Drip in a tablespoon of hot water from the pasta pot to thin it out. Do not otherwise heat it.
Cook the pasta and immediately move it to the sauce pan. Don't rinse it. You want the pasta to absorb the sauce.
Swirl a while. Sing a song. Hum at least.
Load a plate and then take a slice of prosciutto and tear it into pieces (about three a slice) along the veins of fat. Drape each piece over the pasta. Repeat.
Chiffonade some basil leaves for eye appeal and sprinkle on top. To do that, you pile up two or three big basil leaves, roll them from the tip to the bottom into a cigar and slice across the shorter width in narrow strips to make ribbons of basil.
It's fun and even I can do it.
There's a nice hint of lemon from the doctored pestù and the salt of the prosciutto is a nice touch, too. If you didn't know better, you'd think you were having an elegant meal at a fancy restaurant.
And if you can add a glass of dry white wine to it, you might as well be.