cilantro and smoked almond pesto

by Eva on March 16, 2013

First comes first, thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post, you made my day. I am caught of guard about your honest emails, you might not know how helpful this is for me. I appreciate you all so much!

The other thing that’s bothering me about being new in town, is starting from scratch with everything. Beside the administrative stuff like getting a new driver’s license and car registration (check and check), I also have to find random shops like favorite groceries and pizza delivery service. But I postponed the search for a new dentist, there is no need to rush, who want’s that? Being so lazy about that topic is maybe the reason why I ended up at one of my last dental practice. This place stuck in the late 70’s including the receptionist hairstyle. I was amazed to find a computer on her desk, I rather expected paper stacks and steno notebooks. I spend the next hour saucer-eyed and with too much blood in my head. Let me explain… My former dentist was a little on the short side, means while he was sitting on his little stool his assistant pushed the antique dentist chair as low as possible and my feed went up and my head went down. That explained the (overflowing) blood in my head. And why I had my eyes gapping wide open? While he worked on my teeth he explained his practice situation. Turned out there had been a fire in his former rooms and he had to move temporary. One night after business hours a guy broke in, not for stealing the dentist’s favorite dental drill but for (gasp) self-immolation. He managed to survive without injury, I guess – I wasn’t able to ask any questions. But he burned down the whole place. I felt sorry for my tiny dentist, he had been still outraged weeks later. You might wonder why someone should try to perform suicide at his dentist office? Well I did, hanging there nearly upside down, with an over performing brain due to an unreasonable amount of blood and someone else’s fingers in my mouth. I put two and two together while listening to his next stories. Turned out he was head over heals in love with a guy in Berlin, he found it appropriate to share this with me because I am from Germany and… I don’t know actually. But suicide out of spurned love made sense to me. I spare you the rest of his stories (involved carnival in Germany) because you won’t believe me anyway. Needless to say, this is no fairy tale, all true. It was so far the most bizarre and entertaining dentist experience in my life.

Back to business, Mr. F and many more are not a big fan of cilantro because it is too soapy for their taste. I shared this opinion but it grew on me and now I love it. I made this pesto for a couple of times and keeping it more or less “plain”, I mean no other spices or flavors added, allows me to combine it with more dishes. It is great as a base for a sandwich, fish burger, with baked potatoes, grilled meats, for seasoning rice, garnish for soup especially this one… Let me know if you have a combination I missed so far.