Pesto

A recipe to forget your woes and remember your blessings.

To capture summer in an ice-cube-sized package:

Take all the basil your kids can bring in from the garden. Have the toddler, harvest, too, with calls of "Me help, too!"

Throw it in the blender with pecans, grown by your uncle in an organic orchard he converted from conventional practices. Think of how glad you are you don't have to be a pecan farmer for a living.

Add in some of Penzey's dried garlic, and some garlic you had left from your garden, too.

Throw in a big pinch of smoked salt, brought back from a neat little shop you found on your trip to California, slow smoked in small batches until it's so good you can't stop stealing pinches of it.

Douse the whole thing in basil-infused sunflower oil that you made at the beginning of summer.

Have your seven-year-old son be in charge of the blender, even though he says he wants "absolutely never, not even once," to have even a bite of the finished product.

Blend in the Vitamix.

Freeze in popsicle containers, just to freak your kids out, and so you'll have small sizes later.

Repeat, replacing basil with mint.

Serve the basil one over hot noodles, with tomatoes, fresh mint and basil leaves and pecans on top. Use the mint one to rub on roats.

Forget all else that ails you.