Making Pesto

We finished harvesting our Sweet basil and Lemon basil today. We grow it in the greenhouse.

Some years we've grown as many as seven kinds of basil - Sweet, Lemon, Thai, Purple, Cinnamon, Persian and Genovese. We've been growing basil since 1988, when we lived in our old house near the west end of Fairview Loop, on the other side of Wasilla.

This year, we kept it simple, because we travelled so much while the stuff was growing. And this year, we combined the Lemon and Sweet basil into one pesto blend, rather than keeping them in separate batches.

The kids love pesto. They always have. It isn't really cheap to make in Alaska, unless you grow your own basil. Most of the farmers' markets up north charge far more for basil than do markets in the lower 48. A few years ago, I bought three shopping bags completely full of basil in a farmers market in Des Moines, Washington, for $12.00. The pesto we made in Seattle went up to Julia's house in Bellingham, where she shared it with her college room-mates.

Pesto freezes better than any other vegetable product we store. We've eaten pesto that has been frozen for five years, that still tastes better than anything one could buy in most stores.