How To Live A Good Life and Make Pesto Sauce

My very good friend, fellow editor and writer, Carol Price, wrote an excellent piece recently about how women should prepare themselves for a life alone. Carol's premise is based upon the fact that women outlive men. I love the pragmatism of Carol's thinking. However, I also think men should prepare for a solitary life for the simple reason of the possibility of being left alone after a divorce.

Thinking back to my childhood days I can well remember that my father could not cook a sausage and did not know washing machine from a fridge. Without my mother he would have been totally lost in terms of looking after himself. These days things are different, though I dare say that a great many men still would struggle if they had to live alone.

In my case I was for many years a house husband whilst my ex wife went out to work, at her behest I might add. With three young children to care for I had to get with the programme pretty darn quick. I took to cooking and cleaning like a duck to water and have been thankful ever since.

Post first and second divorce I did very well looking after myself and to this day still do my share of the household chores. It was something of a surprise to me that I found ironing clothes a very therapeutic activity. Pressing clothes is such a simple task I found that I could do it in automatic mode and just relax or put the active part of my mind to other matters. Quite often an idea for a song or an article would come to me and was almost fully written in mind before I finished ironing the last pair of underpants. You just have to be careful not to iron any creases into the crotch area.

As for the cooking, well I must confess to buying one or two cookery books, Linda McCartney, Delia Anne Smith.......I also used to pick up recipes from the a local supermarket like Sainsbury's. However, I have to say that for some reason if I followed the published recipe to the letter, somehow it never came out quite right. In the end I used the idea, but I decided on the exact amounts of the ingredients by trial and error. To this day I make a great pesto sauce even though I never use exactly the same quantities of ingredients every time I do it. A system of 'more or less' works just fine by me.

I have to admit that these days my lovely wife does more of the cooking than I do for the simple reason that she enjoys doing it. But she loves it when I insist on being the chef of the house. The way to a woman's heart is through her stomach every bit as much as it is for a man.

The one thing that has been a constant nearly all of my life has been the deeply felt desire to be physically independent. I have never been completely comfortable with the idea of being totally dependent on somebody else. That for me is leaving far too much to chance. I much prefer the comforting thought that should anything awful happen to my life partner I can go on. I might crash and burn emotionally, but physically never.

In these very much different times that we live, very far from the days when a man left all the cooking and cleaning to his wife, I do believe it is incumbent upon all men to get up to speed with domestic cooking and cleaning. I believe that this is not only good for a potential future life alone and avoid being put into a care home, but it will also make you a far better married partner. To do anything less than pitch in with the housework is nothing less than insulting, not to mention foolhardy.

Having mentioned Pesto it would be remiss of me to not tell you how to make it.

Ok, first off, do not just go and buy a jar of pesto from your local supermarket. Make the effort to make your own, free of any additives and so fresh tasting you'll love it.

All you need is a chopping board and a mortar and pestle (I personally prefer a mortar and pestle made of olive wood, though any will do).

To make pesto you will need....

About a dozen fresh leaves of basil.

500 mg of Parmesan Cheese.

A clove or two of garlic.

500 gm of pine nuts.

120 ml, or a third of a cup, of extra virgin olive oil.

Tear rather than cut the basil leaves into small pieces as tearing releases more of the flavour.

Finely chop the pine nuts and garlic.

Place the basil, pine nuts and garlic in the mortar (the container) and grind the ingredients with the pestle. You can do this by gently pounding the ingredients into the base of the mortar or by crushing the ingredients by applying pressure with the pestle.

Then pour the Parmesan cheese into the mix along with the olive oil and stir it all around.

Next boil some pasta Penne Rigate for about eleven minutes, until it is what they call 'Al Dente'.

Drain the pasta of all the water, tip it on a plate and spoon the pesto sauce all over the top.

You can add other ingredients like tomatoes, Italian Parma Ham and some lightly fried tasty mushrooms.

And of course, a glass of cold white Italian wine will always be a welcome addition to wash it all down. That is what I call happiness on a plate.