Rohini’s story
I’ve been away from home for 15 years now. Every time I would come home from Rishi valley or college or Bangalore, mum would keep a hot bowl of pasta ready. She made the best Aglio olio. Penne, perfectly al Dante. The tomato sauce full of love, kept separate and lots of veggies – red yellow bell pepper, broccoli, olives, sundried tomato, and this special chili from Italy which hit the right spot.
I tried pesto for the first time at Sunny’s in Bangalore. It blew my mind. I try it at every Italian joint. Or used to, since we no longer go out now. Mum also tried it. She loves basil but had not realized how simple the recipe is. So now, I have simple dal-roti-sabji waiting for me when I go home and I’m the one who makes pesto for us. My numerous experiments to perfect it have paid off. I make it for any and every occasion/pot luck. I’m honestly a little tired of the pasta, but I’ll never have too much pesto in my life.
I’m so homesick. I can’t wait to go cook everything for her.
My experience making, eating and feeding pesto pasta
- I have waited very long to make pesto. I have waited and prayed for basil more than I did for coffee at the start of the pandemic. I even tried to grow my own basil. It was when I ran out of patience that I asked my Instafam for leads. Lo and behold, I found a basil guy in Amravati. I “score” basil, which is college for procuring drugs and feels more fitting to the pilgrimage it was to find it. This little escapade was one of the more exciting things from the pandemic and helped me know my hometown better. Can you believe I said hometown?
- The first time I went to the shop, not expecting to find any basil or a shop, I took Mumma and Goldie with me. When I did find basil, I did my happy hop in public. It took all the strength in my body to remind myself of the societal rules of physical distancing, so I wouldn’t the man. I really, like I did the cleaner lady at Mocha, would have hugged him.
- I was following a recipe the 4th step of which read: toss with pasta and serve. I was surprised; where was the cooking? I just blended some ingredients. Making pesto is so easy and rewarding, which I believed to be mutually exclusive. This makes pesto the cookies of non-desserts.
- After mum and pesto, Rohini and my conversation meandered to home and how she is thinking of shifting back, how I did 2 years ago, full of doubt and fear. Best decision I ever made.
After Mumma went to the asylum, I felt untethered. I worried “who would claim me?” If I were held by the police, the other children would have their mothers claim and take them home. Who would come for me? I would be stuck on a bench like on when parents came to get our progress reports at school, waiting for no one. If I messed up, spilled soup at a wedding, or worse-was wrongfully blamed for spilling it- who would stand up for me and say “I think there’s a confusion. I don’t think she did it”?
The feeling clung to me so long, it became a part of me. I worked hard to disengage myself from it. I filled the space it occupied with assurance and other people. But even now, the feeling- when gone back to- fits well, like a well worn, soft t-shirt, now at the back of your cupboard. These thoughts were running in my head while I made the pesto. I realized that I had unintentionally picked people to I learned things from, listen to with parental subordination, imagined getting scolded from, had foods associated with like “my mom makes the best hummus”. In my imagination, they claimed me, stood up for me. Mami was one of them.
To commemorate being home, feeling tethered, having mum AND all the people I claimed, I want to say “my Mami makes the best pesto”
Mami’s pesto recipe
Ingredients
Coriander/basil/combination – 1 cup
walnuts/pine nuts/almonds – 1/2 cup
olive oil – 1/4 cup
garlic and salt to taste
Step
Grind into a paste
That’s it. Can you believe that?!