recipe: arugula pesto

The lettuce in my kitchen garden has been an overwhelming success so far this spring. Our winter was so mild in D.C. that I was able to put the seeds for my cool-season veggies in the ground early, which means Tony and I have been enjoying lettuce for weeks. In fact, we now have more romaine, leaf lettuce, spinach, and arugula than we know what to do with. We have salads almost every night with dinner, and I've shared a lot of it with friends. (Come on over this weekend if you want some!) I've also been making pesto with all of the extra arugula, which Tony says is his new favorite meal.

The beautiful thing about pesto is that it's flexible. No basil? No pine nuts? No problem. Cooking is like an art, so you don't usually have to worry about measurements. And I'm always substituting ingredients for what I actually have in the house. (On the other hand, baking is like a science -- I follow the recipes exactly, lest I end up with a flat cake or a burnt cookie.)

That said, here are some approximate measurements to use as guidelines:

Arugula Pesto

• 1/2 cup nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, and almonds are all yummy)
• 2 cups arugula
• 1/2 cup cheese (try parmesan, mozzarella, or whatever you have on hand) 
• a garlic clove or two
• dash of salt
• 1/2 cup cup olive oil

In a frying pan, toast the nuts over medium heat. Transfer the nuts to a food processor and pulse with the arugula, cheese, garlic, and salt. Add the olive oil and puree. Coat your pasta with the pesto and enjoy. 

weekend escape: scotland, maryland

Washington's traffic is never particularly easy to drive in, but sometimes it's almost unbearable to be in the car around here. Rush hour. Holiday weekends. Any time it rains. 

So the prospect of a Memorial Day getaway to Scotland, Md., became even more attractive once we figured out we wouldn't need to cross the dreaded Bay Bridge to get there. 

Scotland. I'd never heard of it either. But it turns out that it makes a fantastic little middle-of-nowhere weekend trip from D.C. Here's where it is on a map:

It's truly in the middle of nowhere, right on the Chesapeake Bay. My friends and I rented a three-bedroom, beachfront house on this prehistoric-looking dirt road:

Don't get me wrong. I love the city and all the perks of living in it, but sometimes I need to refresh myself with a weekend on a beach that looks like this:

Can this place get any better? Oh, yes, it can: It's only two hours from D.C. 

Tony and I made the trek with college pals Jamie and Mike along with Mike's girlfriend, Jen. Mike found our house on vrbo.com, a website where homeowners list their vacation rentals. I adore this website. When I travel now, I almost exclusively stay in houses like these rather than hotels. Being in a house makes vacation more comfortable, plus we can cook in the kitchen. Plus it's not a hotel. 

We got to talking to the folks who own the neighboring houses. It sounds like most of them live in D.C. or Annapolis and come down on weekends. Which got me daydreaming about buying a beach house of my own ... how much exactly is flood insurance? Snap out of it, Jessi -- one house is plenty! 

It's become something of a tradition for my friends and me to make a weekend trip to mark 30th birthdays -- first Philadelphia for Jamie's big day, then Canaan Valley, W.V., for my husband's. And that's what we were doing in Scotland: Jen's 30th.  

And any successful roadtrip to a new place always involves a side adventure. This time, we stopped at a flea market in Charlotte Hall, Md., which at first looked like a bust: bootleg DVDs, offbrand batteries, kitchen sponges. But then we happened upon several women selling vintage furniture and knickknacks that made me wish we'd made the trip in a U-Haul instead of a Chevy Malibu. I didn't leave with the cedar chest and dresser I had my eye on, but I did grab this beautiful brass lamp with a striking green glass shade. 

And it works! It's also a good fit with the green and plum colors of my bedroom.