Mum's Pesto

All I could remember was drought. The need for more rain was a constant of my childhood memories, and it became known as Australia's Millennium drought. Yet, Mum’s garden was never a reminder of that. The lawn might have been a little yellow, but the century old lemon tree always had fruit, it never mattered what time of year. Lemons made good ammunition in battles. And in summer, there were bees, and sunflowers, and the parsley patch was the perfect hideout from irritating siblings, the glistening lady-bugs and our tortoiseshell cat far better company. I would crawl into the sun filtered light of the shelter, thanks to the bath water that was siphoned into the yard with the hose every evening. Most of my pants had patches in the knees, due to many muddy escapades.

We weren’t self-sufficient, but our urban yard in Melbourne offered plenty. New-Zealand spinach for home-made pizza, crunchy lettuce, zucchini and yellow button squash for fritters. A smaller brick lined plot outside the old thunderbox, dedicated to sage, and thyme, doubled as a fairy garden. I remember planting out seedlings with Mum, and picking out a hot pink rose, and lavender bush for the front yard, where there were cat paw prints in the old cement path from who knew how many decades ago. Trips to Bunnings were highlighted by picking out the odd garden ornament and soft violet pansies.

I know a lot of people think their mum is the best at cooking, but my mum has the be the best in the world. She made curries, and pasta sauces from scratch. She’s even made the pasta itself, dedicating hours to rolling, and drying it. And in a family where that was never the norm, not something passed down the generations, but something she took the time to teach herself, and share with her children. That’s just one of the ways she loved. We were always fortunate to have good food on the table, and to spend time in the garden, hands blackened with earth, and climbing the lemon tree or onto the brick stack behind the garden shed.

My favourite thing she made? This was summer. Basil grew well in the warmer months, with a smell far more vivid than what came from the shops. That was the base for Mum’s rendition of the famous Women’s Weekly pesto recipe. With fresh garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, a good parmesan, natural almonds (when pine nuts were often scarce), and a little salt, Mum would make it with the big mortar and pestle. She’d add it to pasta, and that dish remains to be the one sure indicator of the arrival of summer. It’s smell, the tang of garlic, and cheese. Even now, more than ten years since moving from Melbourne, when I make this for myself or visit Mum on uni break, I’m back among the giant sunflowers, with their sandpapery leaves, plotting my brother’s humiliating demise. I’m making potions in old jam jars, with bits from every herb bush in the garden, with some lemon juice squeezed in for good measure.

In the garden, of that home Mum made for us, I was anything I wanted to be. I was an outlaw, or a Saddle Club girl show-jumping over makeshift hurdles, or a witch, or a dragon. I was a woodcarver, a spy, and a warrior that fought the foul beasts of Deltora. With my friends, we were all that, as we enjoyed frozen juice icy-poles between nibbling basil and parsley from the humming garden, dodging bees on the lawn with our bare feet. So, like all great things that appear simple and unassuming, Mum's pesto was and is so much more than a beautiful seasonal meal. It is summer, and contentment, and adventures, and love. It is home.