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This summer’s obsession: Pine nuts.

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My mom’s garden has a handful of pine trees, and one of them in particular is a prolific producer of pinecones —with pine nuts, piñón (not all pinecones have pine nuts, depending on stress, gender (only female trees produce pine nuts), etc.) Also, pine trees do not make the same number of pinecones with nuts every year. The average number of pine nuts per cone is anywhere from 10 to over 100, according to the interweb.

This year, this one tree has an unstoppable quantity of pine nuts. So I started collecting them.

Possibly my favorite pasta sauce is a rich, flavorful pesto: the silky olive oil, the rich combination of cheeses, the fresh basil (with some parsley for extra color!), the tangy garlic, and to bring it all together magically… the pine nuts!!!

The goal: to make a kickass pesto.

The process: to crack hundreds (thousands?) of pine nuts.

Chatting with our neighbor, a local guru who knows all there is to know about nature and country life, showed me his machine for cracking pine nuts.

I am not a fan of Amazon, but I’m in the middle of the country, and I need a nut-cracking machine; the old stone or hammer won’t cut it with the number of pine nuts I have to crack. So I ordered a machine. Although it is advertised as cracking pine nuts, these are too small for this machine, probably designed to break almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, you know, bigger nuts than mine. I returned it to Amazon (sorry, no photo of the first machine).

Second machine: this one does fit and cracks pine nuts, but it pulverizes them. I try to go slow, but there is no way; the flesh of the nuts disintegrates with each swing of the lever.

The third one I ordered is not from Amazon; it is from a hardware store on the other side of Spain. This machine has a much smoother cracking system, so you can apply pressure progressively until the pine nut cracks. One problem: like the first machine, even at its smallest setting, it does not crack pine nuts… The solution? A tiny board “lifts” the pine nut so the cracker part of the mechanism reaches it. Finally, the pine nut problem is solved!!

I’d better get cracking. Pesto anyone?

Ring on Deli by Eric Giroux

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Ring on Deli ready to sail

Ring on Deli ready to sail

A few months ago I got a request from an old teacher colleague and friend to read his book ahead of the publishing date so I could write a pre-review to get the word out. I got the PDF and had it printed at my friendly neighborhood copy shop – where they accidentally printed it twice and bound it as one, making a hefty tome and an environmental tragedy in one. I did not notice until I started reading it weeks later, by which time it was too late to do anything about it but to work on my biceps.

I posted my review on Goodreads. Amazon, on the other hand, will not let me post it because I have not spent $50 in the last 12 months with them, something I am actually quite proud of. At any rate, here is the review, now go read the book!!

Ring on Deli is a rara avis of the current literary scene. Here is a well-built narrative, with a solid cast of characters that add human depth, texture, and color to a story about complex local -and national- issues such as capitalism, education, local government, even pest control! A story that makes you think, laugh, worry, and cheer. Ring on Deli, although satirical in spirit points to real, current concerns. Eric Giroux has hit the nail on the head with his style: a bit of John Irving to weave the narrative, a bit of Philip Roth for dark humor, and a bit of DBC Pierre for freshness, like cilantro. Using satire to sway opinion is as old as literature itself. From Medieval texts to current opinion journalism, through Voltaire and Swift, all have relied heavily on satire to avoid censorship and inquisition (both real and figurative). Ring on Deli is a brilliant read that I recommend without reservations.

Ring on Deli somewhere in the Mediterranean

Ring on Deli somewhere on the Mediterranean