My most memorable dining experience while living in Italy for a summer was the seafood pesto ravioli that I had at a friendly trattoria in Genoa while visiting my former Italian professor. In fact, perhaps it's my most memorable dining experience ever since I mention it every time I have pesto pasta, which is pretty often. Since then, I've had good pestos, my favorite being the Trader Joe's store brand jar that's vibrant green and flavored to near perfection.

I've always wanted to try making my own sauce, but I wanted to wait until I had my own supply of basil. Last weekend Gui and I picked up a couple of plants to keep in our kitchen (I've since moved the chive plant to the outdoors for some much needed fun in the sun), and thus began my search for the perfect pesto recipe. Naturally, for my first experience making pesto, I chose the most physically-challenging (and most authentic) recipe I could find. It was a bit of a challenge, and I should have waited until I had a mezzaluna like the recipe calls for (I looked in two stores in our 'hood and didn't find one...booo).. But, it was worth it in the end. My hard work and sore arm were not in vain because I ended up with a very fresh and tasty pesto linguine. Next time, I'm trying pesto-stuffed chicken...or maybe I'll even give seafood ravioli a try.