What is the zaniest, craziest, maddest thing a mad housewife can do? How about she divorces her husband, has a crazy love affair, then puts everything in storage, and takes off on a year-long vacation—Italy, India, Bali—where she does nothing but try to find herself. Of course, I’m talking about Elizabeth Gilbert, as she recounts her escapades in her book Eat, Pray, Love, now a movie with Julia Roberts.
This is a dangerous and subversive movie. There should be a warning before the title sequence: “Not suitable for Women over Thirty.” Who among us has not wanted to indulge in such madness? To toss our aprons into a sink of dirty dishes and race to the airport, breaking every speed limit along the way, howling at the wind with our best girlfriend, our lips corked round a bottle of Mad Housewife? Maybe we’ll keep on driving. Forever.
I read a review of the movie—by a man, I must add—who called the main character “self-absorbed, spoiled, and emotionally reckless.” Oops! The heroine of a billion daydreams? Instead of discovering herself through self-sacrifice, dedication, discipline, and commitment (like a good girl), Gilbert romps around the world eating and flirting. And then she finds true love.
Well, yes, I guess it is a fairytale—but what a lovely one.
As in all fairytales, there is a secret potion—basil—a seductive four-leaf sprig on top of a soft chewy margherita pizza, covered with bubbling tomato sauce and buffalo mozzarella. Like Proust’s madeline, this magic ingredient bewitches Gilbert, awakening her senses, opening her spirit to love and spirituality.
Whoever has sprinkled fresh basil over tomatoes with olive oil and garlic needs no convincing that basil leads to revelation. Its pungent aroma is like none other; it elevates a common dish to a gourmet meal: eggs with basil, chicken with basil, burgers with basil. It’s even great with vanilla ice cream!
As with all magic potions, it appears when all hope is lost. When the late summer heat has scorched your garden into a wasteland, basil thrives.
But once picked, basil turns brown and ghastly in a day. So what do you do?
The answer is basil pesto. Pesto, which means ‘paste’ in Italian, is a thick sauce made up of oil, cheese, garlic, pine nuts, and a vegetable. You can make it with parsley, cilantro, arugula, mint, or even sun-dried tomatoes. But the most common is basil pesto.
A tablespoon of pesto performs miracles: on top of pasta, as a pizza sauce, in soup or stews, spread on toasted bread, added to peas or mashed potatoes, in omelets, in sandwiches, on fish or scallops, as a rub on steaks. Freeze pesto in ice cube trays. Once frozen, pop out the cubes and store in a bag for fabulous pesto all year round.
After Gilbert’s jaunt around Europe, she comes home, and decides (after much trepidation) to get married and settle down, no doubt with an herb garden in her backyard, with plenty of basil. Yet one can’t help wondering when our heroine will once again feel the mad itch to leave. What keeps the rest of us from taking off? Responsibility?
Humph! I think I’ll untie my running shoes, have another glass of Mad Housewife wine, and think about it.
Basil Pesto
The classic basil pesto recipe calls for basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, and Parmigiano Reggiano. That’s it. Here I add a radish for bite, and walnuts, because you can’t always find pine nuts. Serve on pasta or anything at all. On crostini, with a salad and Mad Housewife Cabernet Savignon, dinner is served.
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 large bunches of basil (almost filling up the blender)
1 radish, chopped
1/4 cup walnuts, crushed
1 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
black pepper
Place the first five ingredients in a blender or food processor, oil first. Once blended, pour into a bowl and add cheese until it is very thick. Add black pepper to taste.
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