A Personal Pasta with Walnut & Sage Pesto

plus the virtues of Secret Lunch, pasta practice, and cooking while annoyed

Wow hey welcome! Thanks to all the new subscribers, hello hi to the OGs, big kisses to everyone.

If you’ve been even half-heartedly keeping up with me on Instagram or the Book & Salt blog, you know about something called the Personal Shrimp Sandwich. It’s but one shining example of something I’ve started to think of as Secret Lunch.

Secret Lunch is the coping mechanism I’ve slowly developed for living at the tricky intersection of being a Food Person (or honestly just a person who eats) and being a mom, where no one wants to eat the thing you want to eat, and/but you’ve come far enough in your healing journey or whatever to know that the things you want are important and should be honored. Centered, even.

Secret Lunch isn’t always secret, it’s just that no one ever asks about it. Secret Lunch isn’t always lunch; it can be dinner after everyone else is in bed, or a second, for-real breakfast after everyone else is at school/work. It can be a meal out and conversation with a friend, especially during the part of the day where, again, your time is yours and no one’s asking where you are. Secret Lunch isn’t for parents only, but it is a sacred tool in the parenting kit for staying sane. Secret Lunch isn’t just one meal, it’s an idea, a vibe. Secret Lunch is putting yourself first.

So what happens when the spirit of Secret Lunch hears the sometimes-delusional siren call of seasonal cooking?

Typically, my autumn cooking delusions fall into two categories: grand things to do with an unwieldy but secretly tender and lovable hunk of meat, and grand things to do with a mountain of precious seasonal produce I bought because I accidentally got Too Inspired At the Store. Sometimes I really do tame that pork shoulder! Or roast that lumpy lil squash.

But most of the time, it’s a busy work day smushed between school drop off and pickup and errands and gym, or it’s evening and everyone’s home but the kids already ate before chess club or after soccer or whatever. I’m weary but find a flickering, wicked delight in making food I intend to explicitly not share, eaten in Couch Goblin mode, shrouded in a blanket, scowling for fun. In these moments, I do not have the energy for the delusional delights but I do want their coziness.

What I can muster is to merely introduce one Seasonal Thing I already made, probably on a different day where I wasn’t in a hurry or annoyed at anyone, to a pantry item that asks absolutely nothing of me other than hot water.

Today, that’s spaghetti draped in a version of walnut-sage pesto I found years ago in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers. It’s comforting (because pasta), and earthy and fallish and interesting (because hella sage), and takes only as long as the pasta needs to cook if you’ve already made the pesto. (And honestly the pesto itself only takes about 10 minutes, max.)

While this is a bowl that lives in my daydreams no matter how it’s chucked together, it's a triumph when you nail the pasta water-heat-pesto trifecta. See, I spent far too many years adding far too little pasta water to my pesto dishes, fearing I’d dilute the flavor. The result was always tightly wound and tense, the pasta trapped and tangled in its own clothes. Over time, my pasta practice has evolved to where I use less water for cooking — still enough to move freely in the pot, but little enough so it looks like the pasta is swimming in the shallow end, not the deep end — resulting in a much starchier cooking water, a most stalwart tool and friend. A starchy water gives you that silky cloak we love. A pasta that looks like it chose its own outfit, satisfied and cozy.

Do My Kids Eat This? I wouldn't know. I haven't offered this to them because I eat it when they're at school or in bed. 🤷🏻‍♀️ The pesto is mild enough, though, that I wouldn’t hesitate to serve it for dinner knowing they’d at least taste it.

Some recipe notes:

• The original Zuni recipe makes 1 scant cup, which feels precious and unrealistic, especially for a pesto that uses steady, stable sage, and not volatile basil that will brown if you look at it wrong. I've always doubled it and still seem to go through it faster than I expect.

• Auntie Judy also tells us to avoid the food processor, but I've found that if you sequence your additions and build the pesto intentionally (big chunkies first: garlic, nuts, hunks of Parm) instead of piling everything in at once, you end up with a pesto that is not only excellent, it takes less time to prep.

Pasta with Walnut-Sage Pesto

Serves 1, generously (but makes about 2 cups of pesto)

• 1 cup walnuts

• 1 cup olive oil, plus more for serving

• 1/2 cup lightly packed fresh sage leaves

• 2 garlic cloves

• 1/2 ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, cut into roughly 1-inch chunks

• Kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper

• 1/4 pound spaghetti (just eyeball a quarter of the box, nothing bad happens if it’s not exact)

In a medium skillet over medium-low heat, add the walnuts and toast, shaking the pan frequently, until the nuts are warm and fragrant, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Transfer the walnuts to the bowl of a food processor (don’t process yet) and set aside.

In the same skillet over lowest heat, add about half of the olive oil and all the sage leaves. Let the sage warm in the oil, stirring and pressing down on the leaves with a wooden spoon or spatula to gently bruise them as they soften. Cook until the sage is fragrant, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

In the food processor with the walnuts, add the garlic and Parm. Pulse — and I mean pulse! like 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off — until the mixture is coarsely chopped and the biggest pieces are the size of, say, a caper. Add the sage and its oil, the remaining olive oil, a big pinch of salt, and several grinds of pepper. Pulse, just briefly, until the pesto is combined. Check the seasoning and adjust if needed. Store the pesto in a clean, pint-sized jar and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. (You can also freeze the pesto in ice cube trays and pop out as needed.)

On the night (or day) of your personal pasta, fill a medium pot with water and add a big pinch of salt. Taste the water and make sure it’s salty enough. This is no time for demure sprinkling, I wanna see a grip of salt. Literal ocean-water saltiness is maybe too salty, but it should come close. Palatable, but barely. (Remember, only a fraction of the salt is actually making it into the pasta.) Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Cook the pasta until it’s 1 to 2 minutes short of the package cooking time — you want it to be tender on the outside but still have a tough center that feels distinctly not ready to eat. Using a heat-safe mug or measuring cup, scoop out about 1 cup of the pasta water and set it aside. Remove the pot from the heat.

Drain the pasta and return it to the still-warm pot with a splash of the reserved cooking water and about 1/4 cup of the pesto. I give you permission to eyeball this: just grab a soup spoon, scoop out a nice dollop, and whack it into the pot. Using a wooden spoon or some tongs, mix the pesto and water through the spaghetti. As you mix, break up any clumps of pesto and add a splash of cooking water as needed to loosen things up. Taste and add more pesto or water as you like. The final lewk on the pasta should be relaxed but coated, with a saucy sheen. Taste and texture are your ultimate guides so put some in your mouth and see how you feel about it. If you’re worried there’s too much water in the pot, continue stirring to help the pasta absorb it.

Transfer the pasta to a bowl, top with all the Parm you want, plus a drizzle of olive oil and a few cracks of black pepper. I also like the added texture of a handful of roughly crushed walnuts on top, but that’s optional. Eat in silence or while yelling at the TV.